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Trapped in **Black Russia" 



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Trapped in 

Black Russia" 

Letters 

JUNE-NOVEMBER I915 



BY RUTH PIERCE 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

die VA>ozti\\iz ^te$0 CambctDoe 



.T5-4 



COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT, I918, BY RUTH PHINNEY PIERCE 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published February iqtS 



l.i-i 



FEB 19 1918 
©Cl.A4923i^ 



Trapped in *' Black Russia 



(( 



Black Russia" 



June 30, igis. 
Dearest Mother and Dad: — 

There is no reason why this letter should 
ever reach you if you consider that it's 
wartime and that I am in Russia. Still, 
the censor may be sleeping when it comes 
along, or I may find a way to slip it over 
the border under his very nose. I always 
have a blind faith that my words will 
reach you somehow. 

I am in Russia — without Peter. Don't 
be frightened, dearests. I came with 
Marie, and we will go back to Bucharest 
together in a week. Only a week in Russia. 
Oh, if the top of my head could be lifted 
off and let out everything I want to tell 
you. 

We had no difficulty in crossing the 
frontier. The little Roumanian train took 
us over a river, and all at once we were out 
of the make-believe country where the 
stage always seems set for opera-houffe, 

[ I 1 



Black Russia 

There were no more pretty Tziganes, with 
disheveled hair and dirty, bare breasts, to 
offer you baskets of. roses and white lilies. 
There were no Turks in red fezes squatting 
in the dust, hunting among their rags for 
fleas, and there were no more slender peas- 
ants in tight white-wool trousers and beau- 
tiful embroidered shirts. Everything, just 
by crossing a river, had grown more serious 
arid sober-colored and several sizes larger. 
Pale-blue uniforms gave place to dingy 
olive-brown ones. 

A porter took care of our luggage. He 
was exactly what I expected. He wore a 
white smock with red and blue embroidery 
at the neck and wrists. His reddish beard 
was long and Tolstoyan. We followed him 
into the big, empty railway station, and 
there a soldier took away our passports 
and we were left waiting in the douane, be- 
hind locked and guarded doors, together 
with a crowd of bewildered Jews and 
Roumanians. 

"It is n't much like the Roumanian fron- 
tier, is it? — where the dreamy-eyed offi- 
cial vises your passport without looking at 
it — he's so busy looking at you," Marie 
observed. 

"No," I replied. "This is Russia. I am 

[2] 



Black Russia 

in Russia," kept going through my head, 
and I felt like Alice in Wonderland, trying 
to adjust myself to new perspectives. 

''I hate getting back here," Marie went 
on. " It was too good to be in a country, if 
only for a little while, where they took 
things easily. If I 'd stayed a little longer, 
I believe I could have laughed myself and 
felt in a personal relationship toward life 
again." 

That's what I was glad to get away 
from. You get too personal if you stay in 
Roumania long. Roumania gets to mean 
Bucharest, and Bucharest the universe. 
As I sat waiting in the douane, I felt like 
puffing out and growing to make room for 
Russia inside me. 

We waited hours. 

"Can't you hurry our passports?" 
Marie asked an official. "We want to 
leave on this train." 

The official raised his shoulders help- 
lessly. 

" Seichas^^^ he replied. 

"What does that mean.?" 

"Presently — immediately — never," 
Marie replied in exasperation. 

The train we were to have taken for 
Kiev left without us, on tracks twice as 

[3] 



Black Russia 

wide as those of the Roumanian toy rail- 
road. Only a courier with a diplomatic 
pouch got on., 

"It's like that here, always," Marie 
said. "No system, no economy of time, or 
anything else." Suddenly she began to 
laugh. "Everything gets on my nerves as 
soon as I get into Russia." 

. We left late in the afternoon. The air in 
our compartment was hot and stale. When 
we opened the window, the wind blew in 
on our faces in parching gusts. But it was 
grateful after the smells of cabbage, soup, 
tobacco, and dirty Jews that we had been 
breathing for five hours in the douane. 

We sat by the window, cracking dried 
sunflower seeds, and looking out at the 
steppes of Little Russia. The evening 
shadows were already lying in the hollows 
of the fields of ripening wheat, but the late 
sun still reddened the crests and the col- 
umn of smoke from our engine. Frightened 
larks rose from the tall grain. We passed 
patches of dark woods, scattered thatched 
huts. Along a road came a man and a 
woman in peasant dress. The train seemed 
to slow up on purpose to let us have a 
glimpse of them through a thin, fine pow^ 
der of golden dust, in their dark home- 

[4] 



Black Russia 

spuns, with patches of red embroidery 
on the white sleeves and necks of their 
blouses. They carried a green box between 
them. Once we passed through a wood of 
pale-green birches with thin silver stems. 
It was a relief to see lines going up and 
down after the wide, level lines of the 
steppes. 

And then it grew dark. A sense of sad- 
ness filled me, and I was glad when the 
conductor lighted the lamp and made up 
my berth. We lay down as we were, all 
dressed, and the train rushing and swing- 
ing along deadened my mind and feelings. 

I was wakened by the conductor's 
twitching the covering back from the light. 
Our carriage had broken down and was 
going to be side-tracked. 

Then began the most restless night I 
ever spent. We bumped along in a third- 
class carriage, and descended to wait for 
an hour or more on the platform of some 
little crossroad station. We sat on our bags 
till our spines cracked with fatigue. The 
men smoked one cigarette after another. 
As far as I could see stretched dark fields 
lighted dimly by thick stars, with a wind 
blowing out of the darkness into our faces. 
No one spoke. Down the tracks a round 

[5] 



Black Russia 

white headlight grew bigger and bigger. 
The noise of the approaching train filled 
the night. We scrambled into another 
third-class carriage and sat on some more 
hard, narrow seats for an hour or so. 

At last the dawn came — a square of 
gray light through the train window. Al- 
most every one had fallen asleep. How 
pallid and ugly they looked with their 
mouths open and their heads lolling for- 
ward! 

At ten we changed' for the last time be- 
fore Kiev. The carriage was not divided up 
into compartments, but was open, with 
rows of seats and an aisle down the center, 
like our trains in America, — only there 
was an upper story of seats, too. I stretched 
out and went to sleep. When I woke the 
carriage was filled. Marie and I occupied 
one seat together. 

Opposite us sat a fat, red-nosed man, 
with a fur cap, though it was summer. Be- 
tween his legs was a huge, bulky bag. 
When the train stopped, he put a pinch of 
tea in his little blue enameled teapot, which 
he filled at the hot-water tank that is at 
every Russian station just for that pur- 
pose. He pulled out of his bag numberless 
newspaper packages and spread them out 



Black Russia 

on the newspaper across his knees — big 
fat sausages and thin fried ones, a chunk of 
ham, a boiled chicken, dried pressed meat, 
a lump of melting butter, some huge cu- 
cumber pickles, and cheese. With a mur- 
derous-looking knife he cut thick slices 
from a big round loaf of bread that he held 
against his breast. He sweetened his tea 
with some sugar from another package, 
and sliced a lemon into it. When he had 
finished eating, he carefully rolled up the 
food again and put it away, and settled 
back in his chair. With great deliberation 
he took out of his vest pocket a little black 
box with bright flowers painted on the lid. 
He fingered it lovingly for a moment, then 
he took a pinch of snuff, closing his eyes in 
ecstasy and inhaling deeply. He did this 
three times and blew his nose vigorously. 
Then he put the box away, brushing off the 
gray grains of powder that had fallen down 
his vest front. All day long, every time the 
train stopped, he refilled his little blue 
enameled teapot and repeated the cere- 
mony, even to the last grain of snuff. 

Across the aisle sat two priests, un- 
shaven and unshorn, in wide black hats, 
their long, greasy black hair falling over 
the shoulders of their dirty gray gowns. 

[7l 



Black Russia 

They spent the day in prayer and eating 
and drinking. They were evidently bound 
for Kiev on a holy pilgrimage to the Lavra. 

In the seat above the old man who took 
snuff lay a young woman, propped on her 
elbow. Every time I looked at her she was 
laughing, pressing a pomegranate seed be- 
tween her lips. Her hands were very thin 
and white. Her face was long and thin and 
framed by short, clipped hair. Every now 
and then a young officer came up to her 
and took her hand, and asked if she wanted 
anything. She answered him indifferently, 
but when he went back to his seat, her eyes 
followed him and rested on him with the 
long, narrow look of a watchful cat. 

At noon and night we stopped at rail- 
way stations for our meals. After Bulgaria 
and Roumania it was bewildering to see 
the counters laden with hot and cold meats 
and vegetables and appetizing zakouskas, 
and thick ztchee soup, and steaming samo- 
vars for tea. Through the open windows 
came refreshing puffs of wind. At the 
restaurant tables sat officers, rich Jews, 
and traveling business men — nothing 
much in it all to suggest war. Always, on 
the station walls were bright-colored por- 
traits, in heavy gilt frames, of the Czar and 
[8] 



Black Russia 

Czarina and the royal family. And always 
in the corners of the room were ikons with 
candles lighted before them at night. The 
train always started before people had fin- 
ished eating. At supper, one of the priests 
almost got left and had to run for it, a piece 
of meat-pie in one hand, the other holding 
up his flapping gray gown. 

After sunset, more and more officers and 
soldiers about. At stations, orderlies el- 
bowing their way through the crowd to 
secure seats for their officers; officers shout- 
ing to their orderlies ; officers alone or with 
their families, arriving with valises and 
bundles and pillows — enough equipment 
to meet any eventuality. 

Another night to get through somehow, 
sitting bolt upright in a car thick with to- 
bacco smoke and smelling of stale food and 
soldiers' boots. 

Once we stopped for an hour out in the 
fields. Marie and I opened our window and 
stuck our heads out of doors to breathe the 
cool air. Extra cars had been put on during 
the day, and we could see the long curve of 
the train behind us, with the red squares 
of the lighted windows. There was a move- 
ment of troops, and soldiers occupied every 
inch of space. We could hear them singing 

[9] " ' 



Black Russia 

soldier songs in parts, 'with pronounced 
rhythm and unutterably sad cadences. 
Some one played their accompaniment on 
a balalaika. Back and forth under our 
train window a woman paced restlessly. 
Never shall I forget the soldiers' singing to 
the balalaika^ and the woman with her 
white face in the darkness, and the millions 
of stars so very far away. 

The second morning, about eight, we 
pulled into Kiev. Our train was so long 
that we had some distance to walk before 
reaching the station. As we approached, I 
saw a crowd of people being driven into 
baggage cars. I was so tired and confused 
by the journey that I did n't distinguish 
who they were at first. When I got close 
to them, I saw that they were thin-faced 
Jews in clothes too big for them. The men 
looked about them with quick, furtive 
movements, a bewildered, frightened look 
in their dark eyes. The women held their 
shawls over their faces, and pressed against 
their skirts were little children. A stale, 
dirty smell came from them all. I over- 
came my disgust and looked more closely. 
How white the faces were, with purple 
sockets for the eyes, and dried, cracked 
lips ! No one seemed to have any personal- 

[10] 



Black Russia 

ity. One pallid face was like another under 
the stamp of suffering. Gendarmes with 
whips kept them on the move, and struck 
the leader when there was any mix-up that 
halted the procession for a moment. The 
Jews seemed to shrink into themselves 
under the lash, sinking their heads between 
their thin, narrow shoulders, then pressed 
forward again with frantic haste. 

I heard the clanking of iron, and into a 
separate baggage car I noticed the gen- 
darmes were driving a group linked together 
with heavy iron chains. I was horrified! I 
had the persistent impression of passing 
through an experience already known — 
"Where have I seen this before.^" went 
over and over in my mind, and I felt a 
dread that seemed the forewarning of some 
personal danger to myself. I was so very 
near such terrible and hopeless suffering. 
What kept me from stepping into that 
stream of whip-driven, helpless people? 

"Who are they.?'" Tasked Marie. 

"They are Galiclan Jews whom the 
Government is transporting into Siberia." 

"But why.?" 

"Because the Russians don't trust Jews. 
Whole villages and towns in Galicia are 
emptied and taken to Siberia by etapes — 

[ II ] 



Black Russia 

part of the way by marches, part in bag- 
gage cars." 

"In this heat?" I exclaimed. "But hun- 
dreds must die!" 

"Not hundreds — thousands," Marie 
repHed. 

"Does it do any good.^^" 

"No. But this present Government is 
very reactionary and the persecution of the 
Jews is part of its programme. You know, 
it is always under the reactionary Govern- 
ment, which is pro-German, that the po- 
groms take place." 

We had got into a droshky and were 
driving through city streets. Women from 
the country were bringing in milk. Peo- 
ple seemed to be walking about freely 
enough. 

The Jews with their bowed necks seemed 
far away — as though, after all, I had read 
about them in a book. Could I have el- 
bowed them and smelt them only a few 
minutes agof 

I was in Russia. How sweet the morning 
air was ! We were climbing a cobble-stoned 
hill. Institutska Oulitza. Here we are! And 
we stopped at the Tchedesky Pension. 

Good-bye for now. Armf uls of love from 

Ruth. 

[ 12] 



Black Russia 

July 5, 1915: 
Darlingest Mother and Dad: — 

We have been in Kiev several days. Our 
passports have been handed in to the police 
station to be viseed and put in order for our 
return trip to Bucharest. They say a hu- 
man being in Russia is made of body and 
passport. 

Kiev is full of color. It is framed in green 
trees that hide the ugliness of modern build- 
ings and seem to lift the gold and silver 
domes of the churches up into the air. And 
how many churches there are! Kiev is in 
truth a holy city. Late afternoon, when the 
sun shines through the dust of the day and 
envelops the city in golden powder; when 
the gold and silver domes of the churches 
float up over the tree-tops like unsubstan- 
tial, gleaming bubbles, and the bells fill the 
air with lovely, mellow sounds, — then I 
can truly say I have felt more deeply reli- 
gious than ever before in my life. Yet, sud- 
denly, I see the woman who climbs Insti- 
tutska Oulitza every evening on her knees. 
She is dressed in black, and deeply veiled, 
and every evening she climbs the hill on 
her knees. At first I thought she was a 
cripple, but, on arriving at the top of the 
hill, she rose to her feet and walked away. 

[ 13 ] 



Black Russia 

"What is she doing? "'I asked Marie. 

"Oh, a penance, probabl7, that the 
Church has imposed on her." 

And then the churches and their domes 
grow almost hateful to me. I think of the 
Russian peasants with their foreheads in 
the dust, and the greasy, long-haired- 
priests I see on the streets. 

Yet I don't know — perhaps the priests 
don't really matter. After all, there must 
be something in the people's hearts — a 
belief — an idealism — a faith in God that 
keeps them loving Russia, dreaming for her, 
and able to dream again after they've seen 
their dreams trampled on. No, the priests 
and their autocracy don't matter. The 
people believe, and that's the important 
thing. 

We went out yesterday afternoon to the 
Lavra — the stronghold of Black Russia. 
It is a monastery on the edge of the town, 
overlooking the Dnieper and flanked with 
battlemented walls to withstand the at- 
tacks of the infidels in olden times. From 
all over Russia and the Balkans pilgrims 
go there to visit the catacombs, where 
many church saints are buried, their bodies 
miraculously preserved under red and gold 
clothes — - so the priests say. 

[14] 



Black Russia 

The road leading to it passed the bar- 
racks, where we saw young recruits drill- 
ing. They were learning to walk, and their 
arms swung stiffly and self-consciously, 
and their legs bent at the knees and 
straightened again like the wooden legs of 
mechanical toys. As they marched, they 
sang wonderful Russian soldier songs. 
They appeared to be about twenty-three 
or twenty-four, as though they had got 
their growth, and were tall and broad- 
shouldered — not at all like the batch of 
Austrian prisoners we passed a few min- 
utes later, and who looked like pathetic, 
bewildered children, beardless for the most 
part, and in uniforms too large for them. 
They shuffled along in a cloud of gray dust 
under a metallic sun. Some were slightly 
wounded in the head or arm, and were sup- 
ported by their comrades. As I passed, I 
encountered certain eyes — frank, gray 
eyes that reminded me of Morris. The 
long, white, dusty road became tragic to 
me, with the prisoners in their worn blue 
uniforms, and those who v/ere about to die, 
singing in the distance. 

We met bullock-carts crawling into 
town, coming from distant villages, with 
fresh vegetables for the markets. The 

[ 15 ], 



Black Russia 

peasants walked by the oxen, prodding 
them with short sticks. There seem to be 
so many men here of military age, yet not 
in the army. It is n't like other countries, 
where every one but the Jews is in uni- 
form. Russia has so many men. They say 
five million more could easily be raised, if 
they had the officers and ammunition. 

We reached a high plaster wall, with little 
booths built under its shadows, where pil- 
grims bought souvenirs of the Lavra — 
gaudy ikons, colored handkerchiefs and 
shawls, beads and baskets. 

A group of pilgrims entered the gate in 
front of us, all from the same village, evi- 
dently, for the women's dresses resembled 
each other's in cut and embroidery, and 
a few of the younger women's were even 
dyed the same color, as often happens in 
wool of the same shearing. In spite of the 
heat, the men wore sheepskin coats and 
fur caps, and the women's skirts were thick 
with petticoats. Some of the women led 
children by the hand; others carried babies 
in their arms, poor little mites, with faces 
covered with sores, and eyes red and blink- 
ing as though they were going blind. They 
all bent and kissed the hand of the priest 
who sold candles under the covered arched 
[ i6] 



Black Russia 

gateway, and then they passed into the 
open square surrounded by the monastery 
walls. There was a sort of garden here; all 
the grass worn off by the countless pilgrims 
who had visited the shrine, but with trees in 
whose shade the peasants rested when their 
sins had been forgiven. Some lay curled up 
on the ground, fast asleep; others sat with 
their legs spread comfortably apart, eating 
bread and meat; and others drank thirstily 
from the well, or let the water run over 
their tired feet. 

Facing us was the church with its gold 
domes blindingly bright against the blue 
sky. We followed the pilgrims and entered 
the chapel, where everything suddenly 
grew hushed and dark, with a strange odor 
— a mixture of thick, sweet incense and 
melting candle grease, and smelly, per- 
spiring peasants. 

The pilgrims bought candles and lighted 
them, and knelt on the flagging before the 
altar. Behind an elaborate railing the 
lustrous jewels and gold of the vessels and 
crucifixes glowed richly in the dim light. 
Priests in gorgeous vestments were going 
through some church ceremony. Their 
deep chanting filled the church. They 
knelt and rose, and finally, by a mechanical 

[ 17 ] 



Black Russia 

contrivance, something was raised in an 
inner shrine, and a priest took off a cloth 
of crimson and gold, and uncovered a 
wonderful gold cup encrusted with jewels. 
I leaned against a pillar, watching the 
kneeling peasants, and over their bent 
backs the mystery and richness of the 
altar glowing with jewels and only half 
disclosed by the tiny pointed candle 
flames flickering in the darkness. The 
Lavra is one of the two richest monaster- 
ies in Russia. Its wealth is fathomless. It 
has lent emperors treasure with which to 
fight the infidels, and on returning from 
holy wars the emperors have brought it 
back to the church increased a hundred 
fold by royal gifts of jewels and loot. 

We went out into the blinding sunlight 
again, and down a long flight of cloister 
steps to the catacombs. 

A priest was selling bottles of a white 
liquid. 

"What is it?" Marie asked. 

"Holy water," the priest replied. "It is 
not for your kind." But he took the ko- 
pecks of an old peasant woman. " Rub it on 
your joints and it will cure their stiffness," 
he said to her, with a cynical smile. 

Three fat priests sat at the entrance 
[ i8 ] 



Black Russia 

of the catacombs, selling different-sized 
candles. The very poor peasants, who 
came barefooted, could only afford the 
very thin tapers, while the rich villagers, 
with heavy, well-made boots and much 
embroidery on their clothes, bought candles 
as thick as a man's thumb, and sometimes 
two or three at a time, which they held 
lighted between their fingers. 

A short, fat priest, his face dripping with 
perspiration, led us through the cata- 
combs. He would wipe the sweat out of his 
eyes with the sleeve of his dirty gown, and 
point to the saints' tombs with the big iron 
key he carried. I was pressed close to him 
by the crowd of peasants behind. The smell 
of his greasy body and the powder of dan- 
druff from his long hair on the shoulders of 
his gown, the malicious way he looked at 
me as though to say, "You and I know 
that what I 'm saying is rot, but it must be 
said to them" — it was indescribably dis- 
gusting. 

We wound through narrow, dungeon- 
like passages with the cold, damp smell of 
an unused cellar. Now and then, through 
barred windows In the stone walls, I caught 
glimpses of tall forms lying in a row, 
covered with dingy red and gold cloths. 

[ 19] 



Black Russia 

"Here He nine brothers who lived for 
twenty years in this cell. Their only food 
was bread and water three times a week. 
As you see, they had no room to stand up- 
right in, and were always pressed close to 
each other." 

The peasants peered through the bars 
wonderingly. 

We passed a body stretched out on a 
stone ledge. 

"This holy saint cured the blind," the 
priest continued in a sing-song voice. "He 
lived in a cell too small to lie down in. For 
twenty-two years he never opened his 
mouth. His body, like the bodies of all 
the holy saints in these catacombs, is pre- 
served without a sign of decay under this 
cloth." A peasant woman lifted her little 
boy up to kiss the edge of the dirty red 
pall. The pale flame of her candle flick- 
ered and the melted wax dripped on to the 
cloth. The woman wiped it ofl" quickly, 
and glanced in a frightened way at the 
priest. But he turned away indifferently 
and went on. 

We saw the bust of a man buried to his 
arm-pits in the floor. I would have stum- 
bled over him, but the priest caught my 
arm. 

[20] 



Black Russia 

"This IS a holy saint, who, for twenty- 
five years, stood as you see him, buried in 
the earth to above his waist. He never 
spoke and only ate bread and water twice 
a week." 

I looked at the peasants. Their faces 
were scared and white. A few hung back 
with a morbid curiosity. 

"Come, come," the priest called impa- 
tiently. " Keep together. Some get lost 
here and never get out again." 

I had heard of three pretty peasant girls 
who had mysteriously disappeared in, the 
catacombs. 

"Oufl" The priest unlocked an iron 
door and we came squinting out into the 
daylight again. He held the door open and 
mopped his face as we filed past him, snuff- 
ing our candles. The pilgrims kept theirs. 

Outside, some of the peasants clustered 
about the priest and asked him questions. 
As I glanced back over my shoulder, I saw 
the circle of round, inquiring faces with 
their look of unbounded confidence. 

We went around back of the monastery 
to an open plateau overlooking the Dnieper. 
The river curved like a blue ribbon, and we 
could see the three pontoon bridges for 
"military reasons." On the low bank op- 

[21 ] 



Black Russia 

posite were the soldiers' white tents laid 
out in regular squares. A ferry-boat was 
carrying some soldiers across the river. 
The sun flashed on the sentries' bayonets 
along the bank. 

I heard the whine of a hand-organ. An 
armless beggar was turning the crank of an 
organ with his bare feet. The plateau was 
fairly alive with beggars, hopping about 
in the dust like fleas. Some were armless; 
others legless. They swung along at our 
heels on long, muscular arms, with leather 
on the palms of their hands, or dragged dis- 
torted, paralyzed bodies that tried to stand 
upright by our sides. 

In the white, hot sunlight squatted an 
old man with a white, pointed beard so 
long that it lay out on the dust in front of 
him. In his arms he held a book done up 
in red cloth. He was blind. If you put a 
coin in a tin cup he wore round his neck, he 
would undo his book and open it, and by 
divine inspiration read the holy words of 
the page in front of him. 

A row of seven blind women lined the 
exit. They began to whine as we ap- 
proached, and stretched out their hands 
gropingly. The eyes of one woman had 
completely disappeared as though they had 

[ 22 ] 



Black Russia 

been knotted up and pulled back Into her 
head. Another's bulged like a dead fish's, 
with that dull, bluish look in them. An- 
other's lids were closed and crusted with 
sores, flies continuously creeping over 
them, but apparently she was indifferent. 
The seven blind women sat in rags and 
filth. Shall I ever forget them in the 
burning sunlight, with their terrible eyes 
and greedy fingers and the whine of their 
voices merging into the tune of the hand- 
organ ? 

When we left the monastery, a group of 
wounded soldiers were just entering. With 
them was a woman in a man's uniform. 
Her hair was curly and short, and her chin 
pointed. Her feet looked ridiculously small 
in the heavy, high, soldier's boots, and in 
spite of a strut her knees knocked together 
in an unmistakably feminine manner. But 
the men treated her quite as one of them- 
selves. One soldier, who had had his leg 
cut off up to the thigh, supported himself 
by her shoulder. I have seen several wo- 
men soldiers in Kiev, and they say there 
are many in the Russian army. 

It is strange, seeing these things without 
Peter. I expect to go back to Bucharest 
with Marie and Janchu within a week. 

[23 ] 



Black Russia 

There Peter will meet us. I wish he were 
here now. 

So much love, my dearests, every day 
and every night from 

Ruth. 

July 20, 1915. • 
Darlingest Mother and Dad: — 

Before dawn this morning I was wakened 
by a shuffling noise from the street. It was 
not soldiers marching. There was no 
rhythm to it. Marie and I went to the 
window and looked out. 

Behind the dark points of the poplars, in 
the convent garden across the street, the 
sky was growing light. The birds were be- 
ginning to sing. The air was sweet and 
cool after the night. And down the hill was 
passing a stream of people, guarded on 
either side by soldiers with bayonets. I 
rubbed the sleep from my eyes to look more 
closely, for there was something ominous 
in the snail's pace of the procession. 

They were Jews, waxen-faced, their thin 
bodies bent with fatigue. Some had taken 
their shoes off, and limped along bare- 
footed over the cobble-stones. Others 
would have fallen if their comrades had not 
held them up. Once or twice a man lurched 

124] 



Black Russia 

out of the procession as though he was 
drunk or had suddenly gone blind, and a 
soldier cuffed him back into line again. 
Some of the women carried babies wrapped 
in their shawls. There were older children 
dragging at the women's skirts. The men 
carried bundles knotted up in their clothes. 
They stumbled and pitched along, as if 
they had no control over their skinny bod- 
ies; as if after another step they would all 
suddenly collapse and fall down on their 
faces like a crowd of scarecrows with a 
strong wind behind them. Some had their 
eyes closed; others stared ahead with their 
faces like dirty gray masks, with huge bony 
noses and sunken eyes. The procession 
showed no sign of coming to an end. It 
crawled on and on, and a stench rose from 
it that poisoned the morning air. The 
sound of the shuffling feet seemed to fill 
the universe. 

" Where are they going?" — I whispered 
to Marie. 

"To the Detention Camp here. They 
come from Galicia, and Kiev is one of the 
stopping-places on their way to Siberia." 

"Do they walk all the way here?" 

"Usually. Let's shut the window and 
keep out the smell." 

[ 25 ] 



Black Russia \ 

I went back to bed. I felt so safe, with 
Janchu sleeping in his crib in the corner. 
The creeping, submissive procession seemed 
a dream. It was incredible to think of 
only the wall of a house separating our 
security from those hundreds of fainting, 
persecuted Jews ! 

We are still here — waiting for our pass- 
ports to be returned. Of course no mail 
from you has been forwarded to me here, 
as Peter is hourly expecting me back. I am 
cut off from all I love most in the world. 
The Russian frontier takes on a new signifi- 
cance once you're inside it. I hope you 
don't forget me. Sometimes you seem 
millions of miles away — and then I look 
in my heart and find you there. I love you. 

Ruth. 

July 25, 1915. 

The Tchedesky Pension is full of Poles — 
refugees from Poland and the wooded Rus- 
sian provinces. 

Pan Tchedesky himself was formerly an 
enormously wealthy landowner near Kiev. 
He loves to tell how he drove through 
town behind six white horses. Gambling 
ruined him, and to pay his debts he sold 
one acre after another to the Jews, who cut 
[26] 



Black Russia 

down the timber and ruined the land. Of 
course, where there are no trees the rain- 
fall is scarce. The crops dried up, and 
finally Pan Tchedesky and his wife and 
children were forced into the city. There 
remained enough of his former property to 
start a pension. The rooms are full of the 
remains of his splendor — heavy gilt 
mirrors, thick, flowered carpets, a Louis 
XVI set in the drawing-room, upholstered 
in faded blue brocade. 

Pan Tchedesky is a memorial of his own 
life; a relic suggesting an earlier opulence. 
He is big-framed, but his flesh is shrunken, 
as though the wind of conceit were oozing 
out of him day by day. His cheeks and 
stomach hang flabbily. His blond mus- 
tache is getting thin and discloses his full, 
sensual lips. His hands are thick arid soft, 
always stained with nicotine. He lives in 
constant terror of his wife, and all the 
pockets of his coats are burned full of holes 
from his hiding his cigarettes in them when 
he thinks he hears his wife coming. I have 
never seen her, but she is the invisible 
force that keeps the pension running, and 
controls her husband by her knowledge of 
his past failures. 

" My wife is an executive woman — very 

[ 27] 



Black Russia - 

executive," he says, shaking his head sor- 
rowfully. 

The bills are made out by her. Occa- 
sionally he intercepts the maid carrying 
her back the money, and extracts enough 
to pay a small per cent of his I O U's, which 
allows him to continue gambling with his 
guests. His moist, soft fingers tremble as 
he holds the cards, and he infuriates every 
one by his erratic bidding. 

A guest slams his hand down on the 
table and calls Tchedesky a name. 

Tchedesky's whitish, livid cheeks shake, 
and his lips open uncertainly. But he must 
be discreet. He does not dare oifend his 
guests, for he wants to play with them 
again, and he must not let his wife know 
that he is gambling. So he begs pardon in 
a whisper. 

There is a pretty maid in the pension 
called Antosha. She has light, frowzy hair, 
and a round, full figure. The other maids 
are jealous of her. When she dresses up to 
wait on the table at dinner at three o'clock, 
she wears a cheap pink silk waist and long 
gilt earrings, and two or three little rings 
with blue and red stones. Her wages are 
fifteen roubles a month. One day I saw 
Tchedesky kissing her on the neck. Very 
[28 1 



Black Russia 

white and shaken, he came to me after- 
wards and begged me to say nothing about 
it to any one. 

He has terrible scenes with his wife, who 
is hysterical and grows rigid. He stays up 
with her all night and uses it as an excuse 
to get a morphine injection for his own ner- 
vousness next day. He is quite courteous 
and frankly loves women and food and 
money. I feel as though, if I poked my 
finger into him, he would burst like a rotten 
potato. 

There is the Morowski family from near 
Cracow. Pan Morowski's brother is in the 
Austrian Chamber of Deputies, but he and 
his family are Russian subjects. They have 
been here in Kiev for some months now. 
For seven days he and his eldest daughter 
remained while the Russians and Austrians 
fought for their farm. The rest of the fam- 
ily had been sent into Kiev, but these two 
had hoped that by staying they might pre- 
serve their farm from being plundered and 
burned. The Austrians had sacked their 
neighbors' houses. The Austrian officers' 
wives had followed in the wake of the army 
and had taken the linen from the closets, 
and the ball-gowns, and the silver — even 
the pictures oif the walls. 

[29] 



Black Russia 

Lovely weather it was. The girl said 
you would hardly realize there was war, 
sometimes. The gardener would go out 
and straighten the trampled flowers. The 
carts of wounded would pass regularly, 
stopping occasionally for water or tea. 
They would say the fighting had passed 
on. And then, suddenly, the crack and. 
boom would approach again, shaking the 
house walls — the little uncurling puflfs 
of smoke against the blue sky — the gray- 
blue uniformed Austrians hurrying past in 
retreat. No carts of wounded any more. 
There was too much hurry to bother about 
the wounded. 

Russians in possession again, and Rus- 
sian instead of Austrian ofiicers quartered 
at their house. How much more polite the 
Russians were — so much more gallant 
and kind-hearted! They did n't treat you 
as though you were a servant — ** Do this. 
Do that." They brought some of their 
wounded to the farm, and Miss Morowski 
helped nurse them. 

But at last the father and daughter had 
been obliged to leave with the Russians. 
How furious the Russians had been — so 
depressed and discouraged when the order 
came to retreat. There had been no fight- 

[30] 



Black Russia 

ing round there for several days, and sud- 
denly the news came that the whole army 
was retreating. Why? They said there 
was no ammunition. So the father and 
daughter left their property in the care of 
the gardener and his wife, who were too 
old to move. How terrible it had been to 
abandon this ground that so many Rus- 
sians had died to win! No ammunition. 
Waste — mismanagement — graft. 

Those in Petrograd should think more of 
their country and less of their own pockets. 
The unquestioning courage of the simple 
Russian soldiers! Every one ready to die 
— and yet nothing to back them up. It 
was disheartening. 

"The Russians gave us a place in a cart, 
and we left in utter confusion — soldiers, 
motor-cars, cattle, wounded, with the Aus- 
trian cannon rumbling behind us." 

"Were you frightened?" I asked. We 
were speaking French together. 

"Not so frightened as sad. I was leaving 
my home. All my life I had spent there 
excepting for a few weeks in the winter 
when mother used to take us to Cracow 
for the balls. I hated to leave my beautiful 
party dresses hanging up in the closets. I 
know some Austrian woman will wear 

[ 31 ] 



Black Russia 

them. And I can't bear to think of our 
house burned! We have had such jolly 
times there, hunting and riding and visit- 
ing the neighbors. You don^t know life on 
a Polish estate, do you? I can tell you 
there is nothing so charming in the world." 

Pan Morowski is a handsome, full- 
blooded man, and plays bridge all day 
either in the pension drawing-room or at 
the club. 

His wife is small and nervous, and you 
can see that her main object in life is to 
marry off her daughters well. She has three 
daughters, pretty, fresh girls, who are fond 
of reading, and perfectly willing to read 
only what their brothers permit them. 
Every day I run across one or two of them 
in the circulating library in the town, and 
always try to get them to take out a for- 
bidden book. They are convinced that 
Bourget has sounded the depths of femi- 
nine psychology. "Isn't it mean!" they 
cry. "If only our brothers would let us 
read more of his wonderful books!" 

Sometimes, in the evening, we sit out on 
the balcony, and the Morowski boys come 
in to talk to us. 

"Are n't you ashamed to treat your 
sisters in this Oriental way?" I ask. 

[ 32] 



Black Russia 

"The less they know till after they've 
married, the better for them. A young girl 
should be pure in every thought." And 
then they begin to make love to us. 

There are two brothers who have taken 
refuge in the Tchedesky pension^ with a 
collection of servants. Their house was 
burned under their eyes, and their property 
is now in the Austrians' hands. The eldest 

brother, Count S -, is very handsome 

and aristocratic, with a cherished gray 
mustache carefully twisted upward, and 
soft, brown eyes, which he uses with ad- 
vantage. Evidently the Romantic poets 
influenced his youth^ and he has found the 
melancholy Byronic traditions the most 
effective foi; his ends, since he continues 
the attitude. 

"He is very sad," his brother whispers a 
dozen times a day. "Of course his experi- 
ences these past months have been fright- 
ful for one of his nature. I am not so sensi- 
tive. But he has always been this way. 
Sometimes I 'm afraid. Our other brother 
died insane*" 

Count S affects to believe that the 

Germans can do anything. 

"They are devils! What can we do 
against them?" he cries at dinner, combing 

[33 1 



Black Russia 

his mustache with the little tortoise-shell 
comb he carries in his vest. 

He never forgets his soda tablets after 
eating. 

His younger brother is round and red- 
faced, with twinkly blue eyes. He limps, 
and follows his elder brother round like a 
faithful dog. The slightest thing amuses 
him. Indeed, he laughs at nothing at all. 
He kept the books on his brother's estates 
and he brought them with him in his flight. 
They are his pride and joy. Sometimes he 
brings them into the drawing-room after 
supper, with photographs of the property. 
There are pictures of boar hunts, and 
huntsmen on horseback, with wolf-hounds 
in the snow, and the tenants merry-making 
and the house and different sections of the 
property, and the horses and dogs and 
cattle. I look at them night after night. 
They love to live over again their life in 
telling me about it. 

Among the servants with the S 

brothers is an old woman, a kindly, slack 
one, who rarely goes out, but observes the 
passing life from her windows. She wears 
a short, loose wrapper and petticoat, and 
scuffs about in list slippers. 

Then there is a young girl with shy eyes 

[34] 



Black Russia 

and quiet, womanlike actions. We often 
see her peeking through a crack in the door 
when Janchu is naughty. 

And then there is Sigmund, a sly, goody- 
goody child of six or seven, whom the old 
woman treats like a son, and whom the 

eldest S- brother has adopted as his 

heir. He plays with Janchu. The brothers 
adore him and take, him to Koupietsky 
Park, and watch him when he plays in the 
pension garden. We have heard that he is 

Count S 's illegitimate child, and that 

the old woman is his mother. It seems 
quite probable when you think of the life 
on a big Polish estate — • the loneliness, 
etc. These three people live together in 
one room. The samovar is always boiling 
and some one is always drinking tea there. 
The brothers share an adjoining room, but 
they are usually with those in there, who 
constitute all that remains of their former 
habits. 

Pan A lives in the pension^ too. I am 

told that he is typical of a certain kind of 
Pole. He is a turfman, with carefully 
brushed side-whiskers dyed coal-black, and 
hawk-like eyes. He wears check suits, and 
cravats with a little diamond horse-pin. 
His legs are bowed like a jockey's. He was 

[35 ]] 



Black Russia . 

the overseer of a big Poljsh estate and has 
made a fortune by cards and horses. His 
stable is famous. He has raced from Petro- 
grad to London. Now, of course, his horses 
have been requisitioned, and he lives by 
his cards. Cards are a serious business to 
him. He will not play in a room where he 
is apt to be interrupted. Occasionally, his 
wife, a hard-faced woman with tight lips, 
comes to the pension, between the visits 
she makes to friends in the country. Pan 

A pays no attention to her except to 

treat her with an exaggerated politeness at 
table; and she, on her side, concentrates 
on the young men in the pension. After 
dinner he always hands her a cigarette first, 
out of his massive gold case, encrusted 
with arms and monograms and jewels. 

"It's curious, is it not.f*" he says, hand- 
ing me the case. "My friends have put on 
their arms and monograms and mounted 
the jewels as souvenirs." 

Generally, he goes to the Cafe Fran9ois 
with a tall blonde woman, the wife of an 
Austrian. Her husband and son are fighting 
in the Austrian army, but she came to Kiev 
with the Russian General who occupied her 
town. Now her protector is at the front, 

and she goes about with A . 

[36I 



Black Russia 

A IS cynical. Women and horses 

and cards make up his life. In a conversa- 
tion he feels his audience as if it were a new 
horse he is learning to ride. He goes as near 
the danger line as he dares. He has no 
breeding, and spends his money extrava- 
gantly. 

K , the last comer at the pension, Is 

a journalist. He has no race or polish, and 
the rest rather despise him for having. none 
of their landed traditions. He is lean and 
brown, with a razor-like jaw and a twisted, 
sardonic expression to his lips. His face is 
cruel. At Warsaw, where he was working, 
he was thrown into prison time after time 
on account of the radical, revolutionary 
character of his articles. He Is well known 
for the strong. Intellectual quality of his 
work. The reactionaries fear him.. The 
slipshod Russian way of handling things 
gets on his nerves. His eyes get like steel 
when he talks about It. Russia's corrup- 
tion and the German advance — ammuni- 
tion willfully miscarried — guns sent to 
the front without ammunition, and am- 
munition sent that does n't fit; and the 
soldiers obliged to fight with their naked 
fists! 

He has sent me Chamberlin's "Genesis 

[ 37 ] 



Black Russia 

of the Fourteenth Century." We discuss 
it after dinner. It's interesting, though 
Chamberlin sets forth an idea he tries to 
prove at all costs. Read it, if you have n't 
already. 

How terribly I miss you. Why do I write 
of Pan Tchedesky and the Morowskis 
when I only want to be telling you how I 
love you and miss you? But it is almost 
unbearable to write you a love-letter. So 
many miles are between us and so many 
months still separate us. Over a year more 
to be lived through. No. I must keep to 
decaying Polish gentlemen and exiled 
noblemen and trust you to know that every 
word in this letter is a love-word to you, 
telling you I hold you so close to me that 
you are one with me in everything I think 
or do. 

/w/y 27, 1915. 
Darlingest Mother and Dad: — 

It is very hot, and food is unappetizing. 
The drinking-water must be boiled, and in- 
evitably we drink it lukewarm. It never 
has time to cool. There is fruit sold on 
the street, but we are warned against it 
on account of cholera. There is already 
cholera and typhus reported in the city. 

[38] 



Black Russia 

So we eat thick vegetable soup with sour 
cream, fried bread with chopped meat in- 
side, cheese noodles with sour cream, etc., 
all Polish cooking. And we drink kvass, 

"What do you think of Bulgaria, now?" 
Count S asks me gloomily, after din- 
ner. 

"I still think she will go with Russia," 
I reply. "In every Bulgarian house I've 
ever been in there is the picture of the Czar 
liberator. A Bulgarian regards a Russian as 
of his own blood. Bulgaria gave Russia her 
alphabet,, and the languages are much the 
same: only the Russian is richer in words 
and expressions. Why, there is a Bulgarian, 
General Dimitrief, holding a high command 
in the Russian army. When I left Bulgaria 
there was no talk of her going with Ger- 
many. *We will never go with Germany,' 
I've heard over and over." 

"But there is a strong German party?" 

"Yes, and they 're being paid well. If 
England and the Entente only took the 
trouble to understand the Balkans. Ger- 
many has sent her ablest men to Sofia with 
unlimited credit. The English representa- 
tives offend by their snobbery." 

"Do you think they'll go in at all?" 
S persists. 

[ 39 ] 



Black Russia 

"Probably they'll be forced in, in the 
end. But the people don't want to abandon 
their neutrality. They're making money. 
They're recouping after the Balkan wars. 
Bulgaria has' had nothing but wars and 
crises for the last five years." 

"They say there are already German 
officers in the Bulgarian army." 

"I don't believe it's so. The Bulgarians 
are very independent. If they went in I 
think they would command their own 
army." 

"But this war Is not conducted along 
Balkan war lines," K said amusedly. 

"No," I agreed. "You know more about 
the situation now than I do. I can't even 
read a newspaper. All I know is the spirit 
of Bulgaria when I left." 

" Is n't Bulgaria's Government auto- 
cratic enough to declare war without con- 
sulting the people?" K continued. 

"Perhaps — unfortunately. The Bul- 
garians say, *We have a wonderful consti- 
tution, if the Czar would only use it. ' " 

"The papers to-day already speak of 

Bulgaria's treason and ingratitude," K 

observed. 

I was angry. "In Bulgaria, some think 
Russia does n't want them to go in on the 

[40] ' 



Black Russia 

Entente side. They think Russia wants to 
make a Russian lake out of the Black Sea, 
and a Russian province out of Bulgaria. 
They say Russia Is the obstacle to their 
having joined the Entente months ago." 

"She will go with Germany," Count 

S insisted fatalistically. " Everything 

is going Germany's way." 

"No — no — no!" I cried. 

"Of course she will go where she sees her 
advantage," said K 

"All she wants Is to fight for Macedonia 
before the close of the war. Certainly, it 
is n't too much to ask if she allows the 
English and Russians to cross her territory 
to get at Turkey. The war will be shortened 
by months if she goes in with the Entente, 
and Turkey in Europe will be finished." 

I know you '11 laugh, Dad, and think 
my pretentions to a political opinion pre- 
sumptuous. My hope is that I'll know 
more when I'm older! 

Love to you all. Think of me, won't you ^ 
Don't let miles make any difi"erence. 

Ruth. 



II 

July 30. 

It is confirmed that Warsaw has fallen! 
Every one is very much depressed. What 
can stop the Germans ? Some one speaks of 
the forts of Vilna and Grodno, which are 
supposed to be impregnable. But what 
about the forts on the Western front .^ 
What do forts amount to nowadays ? The 
strongest walls are razed by the Germans' 
big guns! 

*'The Germans do just as they like — 
nothing can stop them. In the beginning 
the Kaiser said he would sleep at Warsaw," 
Count S says gloomily. 

"And he said he would dine in Paris," 
some one else remarks. 

It is funny how much pleasure Count 
S takes in every foot of land the Ger- 
mans capture. When he talks about the 
war, he seems to take a perverse pleasure 
in accenting their inexhaustible munitions 
and men and the perfection of their whole 
military organization. " We have men, but 
we are children." At every German victory 
he shakes his head. "I told you so." "I Ve 

[ 42 1 



Black Russia 

said from the first — " "There Is no limit 
to what these cochons can do." He seems 
glad to see his prophecies come true; prob- 
ably, because he has seen his own security 
destroyed, he feels the safety of the whole 
world shaken. A hundred times he has said: 
"There is n't a foot of ground that belongs 
to me any more. For a man of my age it is 
a terrible thing to see your life-work wiped 
out all of a sudden." Only a world de- 
struction could come up to his expecta- 
tions now. 

After dinner, in the drawing-room,, we 
spoke about the fall of Warsaw. What 
would the Germans do to the city? Some 
spoke of German frightfulness in Belgium. 

Pan K thinks Warsaw will be treated 

leniently, as Germany wishes to enlist the 
German sympathizers. Still, most of the 
Poles in the pension are horrorstricken. 
They see the Germans marching through 
the streets, and they see the flames and 
shuddering civilians. I can see the Ger- 
mans' spiked helmets in the room. 

"The English must start an offensive. 
England lets France and Russia bleed to 
death before she sheds her own blood." 
There is much talk of England's selfish- 
ness. 

[43 ] 



Black Russia 

Something is wrong somewhere. Every 
one seems skeptical a'bout the Duma. 

I wish I could read the Russian news- 
papers. 

I feel as though I were watching a fire — 
a neighbor's house burning down. I am 
excited and curious. Suddenly, I wonder 
how far the flames are going to spread, and 
I feel panicstricken. Good-night, dear ones. 
You in New England seem so far away 
from this European fire. -n 

July 30, 1915. 
Darlingest Mother and Dad: — 

To-day I went to the Jewish detention 
camp with the wife of the French Consul 
here. She called for me in her limousine. 
As I think of it now, it was all so strange — 
the smooth-running car with two men on 
the box, and ourselves in immaculate white 
summer dresses. The heat was intense, 
but we were well protected. Through the 
windows we saw others sweating and chok- 
ing in the dust of the hot streets. 

"Pm afraid I've brought you here on 

a very hot morning," said Mme. C 

apologetically. 

In spite of my curiosity I believe I felt 
a distaste of the detention camp on such a 

[44I 



Black Russia 

day. A crowd is always depressing, and 
doubly so in the heat. But we stopped at a 
door cut in a high board fence, and passed 
by the sentinel into the enclosure where the 
Jews were penned in awaiting the next 
stage of their journey. 

Hundreds of faces turned toward us; 
hundreds of eyes watched our approach. 
There were old men with long, white, pa- 
triarchal beards flowing over their dirty 
black gowns; there were younger men with 
peaked black caps and long black beards; 
and there were women who had pushed 
back their black shawls for air, and who 
held sore-eyed, whining babies listlessly on 
their knees. Bits of old cloth stretched over 
poles afforded shade to some. Others tried 
to get out of the burning sun by huddling 
against the walls of the tenements that en- 
closed the yard on three sides. The ground 
was baked hard as iron and rubbed smooth 
by the shuffle of numberless feet. 

As we approached, the Jews rose and 
bowed low. Then they settled back into 
their former immobility. Some stared at us 
vacantly; others lowered their eyelids and 
rubbed their hands together softly, with a 
terrible subservience. If we brushed close 
to one, he cringed like a dog who fears 

[45 ] 



Black Russia 

a kick. Yellow, parchment-like faces, all 
with the high-bridged', curving noses, and 
the black, animal-like eyes. I was as defin- 
itely separated from them as though tangi- 
ble iron bars were between us. We seemed 
to be looking at each other across a great 
gulf. "They are human beings," I said to 
myself. "I am one with them." But their 
isolation was complete. I could not even 
begin to conceive the persecution and suf- 
fering of ages that separated us. "All peo- 
ple are born free and equal," indeed 1 I 
turned away. 

"This camp is run on communistic 

principles," Mme. C was explaining. 

"The Jewish Ladies' Benevolent Society 
provides a certain amount of meat and 
vegetables and bread, which is cooked and 
served by the Jews themselves. Here is the 
kitchen." We spoke French among our- 
selves, which seemed to put us farther away 
from the dumb, watchful Jews behind us. 
" If it was n't for us, they would starve. The 
Government allows them eight kopecks a 
day. But who could live on that? Besides, 
most of the Jews here pay the eight kopecks 
to the overseer to avoid his displeasure. 
He makes a good revenue out of the blood 
money." 

[46] 



Black Russia 

Two rooms in one of the houses had been 
converted into a kitchen. A dozen or so 
Jewish women were paring and cutting up 
potatoes and cabbages and meat into huge 
soup-boilers. They were stripped to their 
shirts, and their bodies were drenched with 
sweat. They curtsied to us and went on 
preparing dinner. 

A blast of scorching heat puffed out 
from an open oven. Two women, with long 
wooden handles pulled out big round loaves 
of black bread and laid them on a shelf to 
cool. 

The warm fragrance of cooking attracted 
some white-faced Jewish children. They 
edged into the kitchen and looked up at the 
food, their eyes impenetrable and glittering 
like mica. A woman cut up some bread and 
gave them each a piece, and they slunk 
outdoors again, sucking their bread. 

"The food is scientifically proportioned 
to give the greatest possible nutriment," 
Mme. C said. 

We went out. After the kitchen heat the 
air of the courtyard was cool. 

"This is the laundry. A certain number 
of the Jews here wash and iron the others' 
clothes. They are kept as clean as possi- 
ble." 

[47 I 



Black Russia 

The laundry was gray with steam. A 
dozen or so women .were bending over 
wash tubs. Like the women in the kitchen, 
they were stripped to their shirts. The wet 
cloth stuck to their sweating bodies and 
outlined their ribs and the stretch of mus- 
cles as they scrubbed and wrung out the 
clothes. When the water became too black, 
some young boys threw it out of doors, and 
the women waited for the tubs to be filled 
again, their red parboiled hands resting on 
their hips, in the way of washerwomen the 
world over. 

We crossed the mud before the wash- 
house, on planks, and went into a house 
across the courtyard. 

"This is the tailoring establishment," 

Mme. C continued. "The tailors 

among them mend and cut over old clothes 
which we collect for them, so that every Jew 
may start on the next stage of his journey 
in perfectly clean and whole clothes. My 
husband and son complain that they will 
have to stay in bed, soon, I have taken so 
many of their suits of clothes. — And here 
are the shoemakers.'* 

We looked into the adjoining room, 
where the cobblers sat cross-legged, sewing 
and patching and pegging shoes. 

[48] 



Black Russia 

"It's very hard to find the leather. But 
it is so important. If you could see how 
they come here — their feet bleeding and 
swollen and their shoes in tatters. And 
many of them were rich bankers and pro- 
fessors in Galicia and Poland, used to their 
own automobiles like the rest of us. I think 
I would steal leather for them." 

The workers were different from the 
waiting Jews in the courtyard. Perhaps it 
was work that gave them importance in 
their own eyes, and took away that dread- 
ful degrading subserviency — degrading to 
us as much as to themselves. The whirr- 
ing noise of the sewing-machines, the click 
of shears, the bent backs of the workers, 
and the big capable hands, formed by the 
accustomed work! The trade of every man 
could have been known by his hands!. My 
heart was warm toward them. 

"It's splendid, I think," I said to Mme. 
C . 

As though she guessed my thoughts, she 
replied, "They are grateful for being al- 
lowed to work." 

"For being allowed to work." Those 
words damn much in the world. What 
hindrances we erect in the way of life! 

And I looked out into the courtyard 

[49] 



Black Russia 

again, at the apathetic faces of the waiting 
Jews. Waiting for what? The white, dead 
faces, with the curved noses and hard, 
bright eyes, all turned toward us. Were 
they submissive or expectant, or simply 
hating us ? They say the Galician Jews turn 
traitors and act as spies for the Austrians. 
But surely not these. What could these 
broken creatures do.f* How near death they 
seemed! 

The courtyard burned like a furnace. 
The shade was shrinking from moment to 
moment. The heat rose in blinding waves. 
I was sickened. The courtyard smelled of 
dirt and waste and sickness. It was unreal 
— the whole thing unreal : those working at 
usual, necessary tasks as well as those fur- 
tive, watchful ones in the burning sun- 
light. Death was in them all. 

I went out into the courtyard, walking 
slowly in the scorching heat. There was no 
shade or coolness anywhere. My attention 
was drawn to a pregnant woman who had 
evidently been sitting in a thin strip of 
shade by the fence; but now the sun was 
beating down on her bare head. She sat 
with her arms hanging along her sides, the 
palms of her hands turned upwards. A 
baby hardly a year old twisted fretfully on 

I SO ] 



Black Russia 

her lap, fumbling at her breast with a little 
red hand. But she looked steadily over the 
baby's round head, a curiously intent ex- 
pression in her dark eyes, as though she 
were looking at something so far away that 
she must concentrate all herself on it so as 
not to lose it from view. 

Near her a man leaned against the fence. 
He was red-headed, and his unkempt hair 
and ragged beard flamed in the sun. A rope 
tied round his waist kept up his loose trou- 
sers, and his shirt was open, disclosing a 
hairy chest. Where his skin showed, it was 
unexpectedly white. He kept plucking at 
his chest, smiling Idiotically 

"Is he insane?'' I asked Mme. C-^ . 

"Yes. He's that woman's husband. He 
went out of his head on the road. They say 
he was raging that his wife was obliged to 
walk in her condition. Well, he's happier 
than she is, now." * 

Under a canopy made from an old blue 
skirt lay a sick boy. His face was like 
a death-mask already, the yellow skin 
stretched tightly over the bones of his face, 
and his mouth unnaturally wide, with 
parched, swollen lips. From his hollow 
eye-sockets his eyes looked out unwinking, 
as though his lids had been cut off. He 

[SI 1 



Black Russia 

held himself halfway between a reclining 
and an upright position. No normal person 
could hold himself that way for long, but 
the sick boy kept himself motionless with 
maniacal strength. The flies hung over 
him like a cloud of black cinders. One of 
his friends attempted to keep them away 
with a leafy branch which he had found, 
Heaven knows where! I could see no other 
sign of green in the place. As we passed, I 
noticed the branch sweep back and forth 
over the sick boy's face, touching the skin. 
And still the hxed stare continued, unin- 
terrupted — that blind gaze straight out 
into emptiness. 

At the farther end, an opening between 
two of the tenements led into a garden. 
This space, too, was crowded with waiting 
jews. 

"But where do they sleep?" I asked. 
" Is there room for all those people in the 
houses.^" 

''No," Mme. C replied; "not when 

so many come through as came this last 
time. But fortunately, these summer nights 
are fine; earlier, we had much rain, and you 
can picture the suffering. Then there was 
no shelter for them at all. They were sim- 
ply herded into a pen, and many died from 

[52] 



Black Russia 

the exposure. Now, however, we have 
made conditions better for them." 

There was more reality here in the gar- 
den, where there was a suggestion of grow- 
ing grass and a thin leaf shade. The Jews 
lay on the ground as though trying to get 
some coolness out of the earth. Up and 
down the paths walked several spectacled 
men, who were brought up to me and intro- 
duced as Professor So-and-So, and Doctor 
So-and-So. They were constantly trying to 
get in touch with friends in Kiev or Moscow 
or Petrograd, or colleagues in medicine or 
other sciences, or relatives who could help 
them. They worked through the society. 
By the payment of certain amounts they 
could bribe the overseers to let them stay 
on in the Kiev detention camp, or even 
have the liberty of the city. One man, a 
rich banker from Lvov, had been officially 
*'sick'' for several months, but as his 
money- had almost given out he was in 
danger of being sent on to Tomsk in the 
near future. He lived in the hospital, where 
he had better quarters and food. These 
professors and doctors, men of wide learn- 
ing and reputation, who are recognized as 
leaders in their professions, and are con- 
structive, valuable forces in society, were 

[S3] 



Black Russia 

herded together with the others, and will 
be allowed to disappeaf into Siberia, where 
their minds and bodies will be wasted, their 
possible future activity to count as nothing. 

A man in a soiled white coat came up, 
looked us over with little blinking pig eyes, 

and addressed a few words to Mme. C 

in Polish. 

''That is the overseer," Professor A ' 



said to me in English. "He takes every 
kopeck away from us. But he is no worse 
than the rest. All along the way it is the 
same thing. One is bled to death." He 
shrugged indifferently. "We most of us 
could have gathered together a little money. 
But what will you.'* It was all so sudden. 
We had no time. Here we are, en tout cas. 
And after all, in the end — " 

I might have been talking with the pro- 
fessors on the campus of their own univer- 
sity. They exerted themselves to be atten- 
tive and entertaining, as though they were 
our hosts. 

One doctor said to me in French, " I have 
seen your wonderful country. It is amaz- 
ing. I would like to see it again. I have 
been asked to lecture. Perhaps, after the 
war — " 

He broke off abruptly. In a flash the end 

[54] 



Black Russia 

of his life came up to me. His work and am- 
bitions, and then the cleavage in his career; 
the sharp division in his life; the prepa- 
ration of years, and then, instead of ful- 
fillment, an exile to a country where life 
was a struggle for the bare necessities of 
the body — food and shelter. I looked at 
his hands — thin and white and nervous. 
What hideous, despairing moments he must 
know! 

I asked him a question. His eyes blazed 
suddenly. 

"Do not speak of these things ! They are 
not to be spoken of, much less to you^ He 
looked as though he hated me. "I beg 
your pardon, I am nervous. You must ex- 
cuse me." He went away hurriedly. 

"Poorchapi" Professor A said. "It 

is hard for us all in this heat. And, yes, 
some of us have more imagination than 
others.'' 

A man in uniform came into the garden. 
He walked to a tree in the center, and stood 
in the shade, a long sheet of paper in his 
hand. There Nvas a stir among the Jews. 
Those lying down got up and approached 
him. The women, with their children, 
dragged themselves nearer. Every one 
stopped talking. The apathy and indifFer- 



Black Russia 

ence gave place to a strained attention. 
There was a kind of dreadful anxiety on 
every face — a tightening of the muscles 
round the eyes and mouths, as though the 
same horrible fear fixed the same mark 
there. I have never seen a crowd where 
personality was so stamped out by a sin- 
gle overmastering emotion. The gendarme 
began to read In a sing-song voice . 

"What Is he saying.^" I whispered. 

"The names of those who are to leave 
this afternoon," Mme. C replied. 

The garden was absolutely still except 
for the monotonous voice and the breath- 
ing of the crowd. Oh, yes, and the flies. It 
was not that I forgot the flies, only their 
buzzing was the ceaseless accompaniment 
to everything that happened in the camp. 

"How horrible this is!" Mme. C 

observed. "They all know it must come, 
but when it does, it Is almost unbearable. 
It is truly a list of death. Many of them 
here cannot survive another stage of the 
journey In this heat. And yet they must 
be moved on to make place for those who 
are pressing on from behind. In this very 
crowd were five old men who were killed 
on the way here, by the soldiers, because 
they could n't keep up with the procession. 

[56] 



Black Russia 

How could these civilians be expected to 
endure such hardships? They are towns- 
people, most of them having lived indoors 
all their lives, like you or me." 

''Like you or me." No, no. It was unbe- 
lievable. I could not put myself in their 
place. I could not imagine such insecurity 
— that lives could be broken in the middle 
in this way. 

"How useless it all seems!" I said. 

"Useless. You think so.?" Mme. C ■ 

took me up. "Do you realize that whole 
Galician towns have been moved into Si- 
beria this summer.? Part of the way on 
foot, part in baggage cars, where they 
stifled to death in the heat and for lack of 
water and food. One carload was n't listed, 
or was forgotten by some careless official, 
and when it was finally opened it. was a 
carload of rotting flesh. The bodies were 
thrown into the river by the frightened 
official, but a soldier reported him and he 
was court-martialed. One crowd of several 
thousand was taken to Siberia. They 
reached Tomsk. Then the Government 
changed. What was the need- to transport 
these Galician Jews.? the new Minister 
argued: a useless expense to the Govern- 
ment: a waste of money and time. Let 

[57] 



Black Russia 

them go back to their homes. So the Jews 
were taken back over- the same route, 
many more dying on the return journey, 
in the jails, and camps, and baggage cars, 
or by the roadsides. They found themselves 
once more back in their pillaged towns, 
with nothing to work with, and yet with 
their livelihood to be earned somehow. 
They began to dig and plant and take up 
the routine of their lives again. They be- 
gan to look on themselves as human again. 
The grind of suffering and hopelessness be- 
gan to let up and they had moments of 
hope. And then the reactionaries came into 
power with their systematic oppression of 
the Jews. Back to Siberia with them! This 
in midsummer heat. I saw them as they 
passed through Kiev for the third time, a 
few weeks ago. Never shall I forget them 
as I saw them last. The mark of the beast 
was on them. You could n't call them liv- 
ing or suffering or martyrs any more. They 
were beyond the point where they prayed 
to die." 

The gendarme had finished his list. The 
tension relaxed. Some of the Jews settled 
back into their former apathy; others 
gathered in excited groups, pulling their 
beards and scratching their heads; still 

tS8] 



Black Russia 

others walked up and down the paths, 
restless, like so many caged animals. 

A man and a woman with two children 
approached the gendarme deprecatingly. 
The man asked a question, indicating the 
woman and children. The gendarme shook 
his head. The man persisted. The gen- 
darme refused again, and started to move 
away. The man detained him with a hand 
on his arm. Another man approached. He 
spread out both hands, his shoulders up to 
his ears. All three men spoke Polish in 
loud, excited voices. 

"What are they saying.^" I asked. 

"The gendarme has just read the names 
of the woman and children who are to 
leave this afternoon. The father's name is 
not with theirs. Naturally, he wants to 
be with his wife and children to protect and 
care for them as best he can. If they are 
separated now, they can never find each 
other again in Siberia — if they live till 
they get there. The third man is alone. 
He is willing to give up his place to the 
father. But the gendarme refuses. 'His 
name is written. Yours is not. It is the 
order,' he says." 

The gendarme now left the garden. The 
woman was sobbing in her husband's arms. 

[S9] 



Black Russia 

He was patting her hair. The children 
hung at their mother's- skirt, crying and 
sucking their fingers. 

August 12, 1915. 
Dearest Mother and Dad: — 

They say there was no ammunition at 
the front. No shells for the soldiers. They 
had nothing to do but retreat. And now? 
They are still retreating, fighting with 
empty guns and clubs and even their 
naked hands. And still, trainloads of sol- 
diers go out of Kiev every day without a 
gun in their hands. What a butchery! Can 
you imagine how horrible it is to see them 
march through the streets, swinging their 
arms and singing their stirring songs, — 
tall, able-bodied men, — while the beggars, 
cripples from the Russo-Japanese War, 
stand whining at the street corners. 

There seems to be no doubt about the 
enemy within the gates. How can the 
soldiers give their lives so patiently and 
bravely for a Government whose villainy 
and corruption take no account of the sig- 
nificance of their sacrifices. The German 
influence is still strong. They say German 
money bribes the Ministers at home and 
the generals at the front. 
[ 60 1 



Black Russia 

There is great distrust of the Czarina 
and the Monk Rasputin. The latter was a 
serf in Siberia, and now has a malignant, 
hypnotic influence in the Russian Court. 
If he is refused anything, he falls on the 
floor in a fit and froths at the mouth until 
he gets what he wants. The Court ladies 
have to lick his dirty fingers clean, for he 
refuses to use a finger-bowl at table. Take 
this for what it's worth. At any rate, there 
is much talk now of the Germans working 
through this disreputable creature. 

I asked a Russian if there could be a revo- 
lution. 

There seems to be no hope. Russia, 
apparently, lacks the coordination and 
singleness of purpose necessary for one. 
And so many unseen Influences are at 
work. There is no agreement among the 
people as to what they want. Each faction 
is secretly encouraged to war against the 
other In order to weaken each other and 
blur the reason and end in the people's 
minds. Besides, of course, nothing can be 
done as long as the army can be used 
to crush any demonstration - against the 
Government. But If I were a Russian, all 
my hate would be directed against the 
traitors of my country, rather than at the 

[ 6i 1 



Black Russia 

Germans, who, after all, are political ene- 
mies. I would carry a *gun against those 
who sell my country and make capital out 
of her suffering. 

In every newspaper there are accounts 
of enormous graft by Ministers and com- 
panies under contract to the Government 
for military supplies. One case was trans- 
lated to me the other day. Some men high 
up in the Government took over a contract 
for a certain number of cavalry saddles and 
bridles. They sold it to the Jews, making 
a tremendous rake-off. The Jews, to get 
any profit, were obliged to furnish poor 
material. At the trial, where some officers 
were testing them, the bridles broke in 
their hands like paper and the saddles split 
into ribbons. 

Then there was a sugar factory in Kiev, 
whose owner wrote to the Minister of the 
Interior, I think it was, and offered his 
factory, only asking an estimate of the 
approximate amount of sugar the Govern- 
ment would need turned out each day. 
No answer was made. The owner wrote 
again. Still no answer. He went to Petro- 
grad himself to find out why the Depart- 
ment paid no attention to his letters. The 
Minister informed him his letters had 
[ 62 ] 



Black Russia 

lacked the required war-tax stamps and 
had been turned over to the proper au- 
thorities, who would speedily proceed to 
fine him for his evasion of the law. 

I went up to a military hospital to-day. 
I wonder how I can write you about 
it. The insignificance of personalities — 
whether any one lives or dies seems to have 
no importance. Just life seems to matter 
any more, and the forward movement of 
humanity — at least, you must believe the 
movement is forward in spite of the horror 
of mangled bodies and destroyed minds; 
otherwise, you would go mad, though you 
are outside of it all. How the proportions 
of things are twisted after going through a 
hospital. Things that counted before don't 
seem to count any more. You take refuge 
in generalities to get out of your mind a 
look you have seen in a soldier's eyes. 

It was an improvised hospital, — some 
building or other turned into a place to 
receive the hundreds of wounded that are 
pouring into Kiev every day. It was a big 
room, with rows and rows of beds, and in 
every bed a man. One man was wounded 
in the back, and his breath whistled 
through the open hole like steam through 
an escape valve. His face was wound in 

[63 ] 



Black Russia 

white bandages. Others were there, dying 
from terrible stomach wounds. One man's 
head moved from side to side incessantly, 
as though he could never again find com- 
fort on earth. ' Some moan. Others lay 
absolutely motionless, their faces terrible 
dead-white masks. Their bodies looked so 
long and thin under the sheets, with their 
toes turned up. It was indescribably terri- 
fying to think that human beings could go 
through so much and continue to live. I 
was more frightened than ever before in my 
life. The smell of blood — the closeness of 
the hot sick-room — flies buzzing about. I 
saw brown varnish-like stains on some of 
the white bandages. The indifferent, busi- 
ness-like attitude of the nurses infuriated 
me. But, of course, they can't be any other 
way and deal with it all. 

I can't write any more. But is there any 
excuse for this.'' 

Ruth. 

August lo, 191 5. 
Lately, our conversation at table has 
been suppressed by the appearance of a 
young woman whom the rest suspect of 
being a spy. She is dark, and never utters a 
word. All through dinner she keeps her 
[64] 



Black Russia 

eyes on her plate. I said something in 
French to her the other day, but, appar- 
ently, she did not understand. Across the 
table, the Morowski boys laughed at me. 
I suspect that they, too, had tried to speak 
to her, for she is pretty, and had been 
snubbed like me. I don't know how the 
idea of her being a spy got round. She may 
have been sent here to keep her eyes on the 
Polish refugees in the pension. Her room 
is in our corridor, and this morning Marie 
saw, through the open door, Panna Lolla 
and Janchu talking to her. It appears 
that Janchu had been inveigled in by bon- 
bons, and Panna Lolla had gone in after 
him. Panna Lolla said the young woman 
was so lonely. She is a Pole and wants to 
leave Russia. She hates it here. But she 
has no passport. She showed Panna Lolla 
an old one that she wants to fix up for the 
police authorities. But she can't speak 
Russian, and is very frightened. She asked 
Panna Lolla if she knew any one who could 
write Russian. Marie forbade Panna Lolla 
to go near the woman again. It is just as 
well, for Panna Lolla likes excitement, and 
is capable of saying anything to keep it 
gomg. ' 



m 

August, 
Darlingest Mother and Dad: — 

We were arrested four days ago — and 
you will wonder why I keep on writing. It 
relieves my nerves. Ever since the rnnsion 
T^Iarie and I have gone over and over the 
same reasoning, trying to get at why we 
were arrested. To write it all out may help 
the restlessness and anxiety and — yes — 
the panicky fear that rises in my throat 
like nausea. Life is so terribly insecure. I 
feel as though I had been stripped naked 
and turned out into the streets, with no 
person or place to go to. 

It was four o'clock, and we had just fin- 
ished dinner. In an hour and a half we 
were leaving for Odessa. All our trunks 
and bags were packed, and our traveling 
suits brushed and pressed. Panna Lolla 
was crying at having to part from Janchu, 
and mending some stockings for him. He 
was asleep. Marie and I were sitting in our 
little salon, rejoicing that we should be in 
Bucharest in a few days where there was 
no war and we could speak French again. 
166] 



Black Russia 

War — blood-tracks on the snow, and 
cholera and typhus camps under a burning 
sun. To shut it out for one instant and 
pretend that the world was the way it used 
to be. What a heaven Bucharest seemed! 

And suddenly the door of our apartment 
opened. Six men came into the room, two 
in uniform, the other four in plain clothes. 
It never occurred to me that they had 
anything to do with me. I thought they 
had mistaken the door. I looked at Marie 
questioningly. There was something pe- 
culiar about her face. 

The four plain-clothes men stood awk- 
wardly about the door which they had 
closed softly behind them. The two men 
with white cord loops across the breast of 
their uniforms went over to the table on 
the right and put down their black leather 
portfolios. They seemed to make them- 
selves at home, and it angered me. 

"What are these people doing here.^" I 
asked Marie sharply. 

She addressed the officer in Polish, and 
he answered curtly. 

"It's a revision^^' she replied. 

"A what?" I 

"A revisiofty^^ she repeated. 

I remember that I consciously kept my 

[67] 



Black Russia 

body motionless, and said to myself, 
"There is nothing surprising in this. There 
is nothing surprising in this." Everything 
had gone dark before my eyes. My heart 
seemed to stop beating. 

Marie laughed and the sound of her 
cracking, high-pitched laugh came to me 
from far off. 

The officer said something to her, and 
she stopped abruptly as though some one 
had clapped a hand over her mouth. 

''What did he say?" I managed to artic- 
ulate. My own language seemed to have 
deserted me. 

"He says it is a matter for tears, not 
laughter." 

Her voice was sharp and anxious. I was 
relieved at the spite and vanity in his 
words. They made the situation more nor- 
mal. I felt myself breathing again, and my 
stomach began to tremble uncontrollably. 

I kept my eyes where they were, fighting 
for my self-control. So many terrifying 
thoughts were trying to penetrate my con- 
sciousness. I tried to shut out everything 
but my realization of what I was looking 
at. I kept my eyes glued on the officer's 
boots; shiny black boots they were, that 
fitted him without a crease, with spurs 
[ 68 ] 



Black Russia 

fastened to the heels. I shall never forget 
the stiff, red striped trouser-legs and those 
shiny black boots that did n't seem to be- 
long on the body of a living man, but on 
the wooden form of some dummy. 

Janchu began to cry from the bedroom, 
and Marie got up to go to him. Quickly a 
plain-clothes man with horn-rimmed spec- 
tacles slipped in between her and the door. 
The officer, who had now seated himself 
behind the table, raised his hand. 

**Let no one leave the room," he said in 
German. 

**But my baby is crying," Marie began. 

"Let him cry!" And he busied himself 
pulling papers out of his portfolio. 

Soon Janchu, seeing that no one paid any 
attention to him, toddled in and climbed 
into Marie's lap. He sat there sucking his 
fingers and looking out at the roomful of 
strange men. 

An army officer entered and spoke to the 
head of the secret service. He wore a daz- 
zling, gold-braided uniform, and preened 
himself before us, looking at us curiously 
over his shoulder. When he had gone, the 
head told us that we were to have a per- 
sonal examination in the salon of the 
pension. -. 

[69] 



Black Russia' 

A secret-service man escorted each of us, 
and we walked down the corridor, past the 
squad of soldiers with their bayonets, and 
into the salon, where we were delivered 
into the handfe of two women spies. They 
undressed us, and we waited while our 
clothes were passed out to the secret- 
service men outside. Panna LoUa tried to 
twist herself up in the window curtains. 
Marie and I grew hysterical at her mod- 
esty, looking at her big, knobby feet and 
her fiery face, with her top-knot of dishev- 
eled red hair. We were given our clothes 
again, and went back to our apartment. 

The rooms were in confusion. All our 
trunks and bags were emptied, one end of 
the carpet rolled back, the mattresses torn 
from the beds. The secret-service men were 
down on their knees before piles of clothes, 
going over the seams, emptying the pock- 
ets, unfolding handkerchiefs, tapping the 
heels of shoes; every scrap of paper was 
passed over to the chief, who tucked it into 
his portfolio. I watched him, hating his 
square, stolid body that filled out his uni- 
form smoothly. His eyes were long and 
watchful like a cat's, and his fair mustache 
was turned up at the ends, German fash- 
ion; in fact, there was something very 

[70] 



Black Russia 

German about his thick thighs and shaved 
head and official importance. As I have 
learned since, he is a German and the most 
hated man in Kiev for his pitiless persecu- 
tion of all political offenders. They say he 
has sent more people to Siberia than any 
six of his predecessors. They also say every 
hand is against him, even to the spies' in 
his own force. 

I trembled to spring at him and claw 
him and ruffle his composure some way. 
Instead, I sat quietly, my hands folded, and 
watched the spies ransacking our clothes. 
I began to feel a sharp anxiety as to what 
they would find. It was all so mysterious. 
What were they looking for.^ At one mo- 
ment it was ridiculous, and I felt like laugh- 
ing at the whole aifair; and then the next, 
the silence in which the search was con- 
ducted, the apparent dead-seriousness of 
the spies' faces, the deliberation with which 
the chief turned the bits of paper over in 
his hands and scrutinized them and put 
them carefully away, struck me with a cold, 
sharp apprehension. I had the sensation of 
being on the very edge of a. precipice. I 
felt as though the world were upside down 
and the most innocent thing could be 
turned against us. Every card and photo- 

[71 ] 



Black Russia 

graph I tried to catch a glimpse of before it 
went into the black portfolio. And sud- 
denly I saw the letter about the Jewish 
detention camp, which I had forgotten all 
about. I saw the close lines of my writ- 
ing, and it seemed as though the edge of 
the precipice crumbled and I went shoot- 
ing down. A cold sweat broke out over 
me. 

"But why are we arrested?" I heard 
Marie ask in German. 

"Espionage," the chief answered shortly. 

" But that is ridiculous. We 're Ameri- 
can citizens." 

No reply. 

"Can we leave for Odessa to-night?" 

No reply. 

Marie stopped her questions. 

"What money have you? Come here 
while I count it," one of the spies said to 
me. He slipped me one hundred roubles on 
the sly, before turning the rest over to the 
chief. I held it openly in my hand, too 
dazed to know what to do with it, till he 
whispered to me to hide it. "You may 
want it, later," he said. 

"Frau Pierce will go with us," the chief 
said, closing his portfolio; and I under- 
stood that the revision was finished. " Frau 

[ 72 ] 



Black Russia 

G can stay here under room-arrest, 

with her little boy." 

He spoke to no one in particular, but 
addressed the room at large, his face im- 
passive, and his voice without an intona- 
tion. The spies stood in the midst of the 
tumbled clothes, watching us silently, om- 
inously. Janchu now crept up into Marie's 
lap again. As a matter of course, I went 
into the other room and changed into my 
traveling suit. 

"May I take my toilet things?" I asked 
the chief. 

"Ja." 

"You'd better make a bundle of bed- 
clothes," the spy who had given me the 
money whispered to me. 

I rolled up two blankets and a pillow 
with his help. 

"I'm ready," I said. "May I send a few 
telegrams?" 

"Certainly, certainly." The chief's man- 
ner suddenly became extremely courteous. 

I wrote one to our Ambassador in Petro- 
grad, one to Mr. Vopicka in Bucharest, one 
to the State Department in Washington, 
and one to Peter. I wrote Peter that I was 
delayed a few days. I was afraid that he 
might come on and be arrested, too. My 

[73 ] 



Black Russia 

hand did not tremble, though it struck me 
as very queer to see the" words traced out 
on the paper — almost magical. My im- 
agination was racing, and I could see my- 
self already being driven into one of those 
baggage cars bound for Tomsk. 

"Keep your mind away from what is 
going to happen," I said to myself. "You 
w^ill have time enough to think in prison. 
Things are as they are. You are going 
to walk out of this room, just the way 
you Ve done a hundred times. Are you 
different now from what you've always 
been ? Keep your mind on things you know 
are real." 

I tried to move accurately, as though a 
false move would disturb the balance of 
things so that I would walk out of the room 
on my hands like an acrobat. 

Suddenly, the chief, who had been talk- 
ing in a corner with the other man in uni- 
form, wheeled about. 

" Frau Pierce may stay here under room- 
arrest. Good-day." 

He clicked his heels together and bowed 
slightly. His spies clustered about him, 
and they left the room. 

All at once my bones seemed to crumble 
and my flesh dissolve. I fell into a chair. 

I 74] 



Black Russia ' 

Marie and I looked at each other. We be- 
gan to laugh. "We must n't get hysterical," 
we said, and kept on laughing. 

The room was so dark that we looked 
like two shadows. Panna Lolla had come 
after Janchu and taken him into Count 

S 's room. We imagined the excited 

curiosity of the rest of the pension. 

" I '11 wager that woman was a spy, after 
all." 

"But why — why should «;<? have a re^ 
vision?^* 

"Anyway, they couldn't have found 
much. We'll be set free in a few days," 
Marie said. 

"They found my letter about the Jews," 
I replied. 

"What letter.? Oh, my dear, what did 
you say?" 

" I forget. But everything I saw or heard, 
I think." 

We began to laugh again. 

"Will they send our telegrams.?" — 
"Will Peter come on.?"— "What shall 
we do for money.?" 

The room was pitch-dark except for the 
electric light from the street. We heard 
the creak and rattle of the empty commis- 
sariat wagons returning from the barracks. 

[75] 



Black Russia 

We fell silent, feeling suddenly very tired 
and lethargic. 

*' Where is Janchu? It's time for his 
supper," Marie said, without moving. 

I started out Of the room to call him, and 
fell across a dark figure sitting in front of 
the door. He grunted and pushed me back 
into the room. 

"I want Janchu," I said in perfectly 
good English, while he closed the door in 
my face. 

"There's a spy outside our door," I 
whispered to Marie. 

Panna LoUa came in with Janchu and 
turned on the light. 

"There's a man outside our door, and 
two secret-service men at the pension door 
and two soldiers downstairs," she whis- 
pered excitedly in one breath. "No one 
can leave the pension, and they take the 
name and address of every one who comes 
here. And that woman was a spy. Antosha 
saw the chief go into her room and heard 
them talking together. And she left when 
they did." 

I lay all night, half asleep, half awake, 
hearing the street noises clearly through 
the open windows. I cried a little from 
exhaustion and nerves, and then controlled 

I 76] 



Black Russia 

myself, for my head began to ache, and 
who knew what would happen the next 
day? I had to keep strength to meet some- 
thing that was coming. I had no idea what 
it was, but the uncertainty of the future 
only made it more ominous and threaten- 
ing. That letter — In the darkness I saw 
the chief's watchful, narrow eyes, and the 
horn-rimmed spectacles of the friendly 
spy, and the stuffed portfolio. 

Later. 
Nothing has happened yet. We have our 
meals brought to us by Antosha, who tries 
to comfprt us with extra large pickled cu- 
cumber$ and portions of sour cream. We 
are allowed to send Panna Lolla down- 
town for cigarettes and books from the cir- 
culating library. Thank Heaven for books ! 
With our nerves stretched to the snapr 
ping-pOint and a pinwheel of thoughts ever- 
lastingly spinning round in our heads, I 
think we should go mad except for books. 
It is very hot, but my body is always cool 
and damp, because I can't eat much, I 
suppose, and lie on a chaise tongue motion- 
less all day long. I can feel myself growing 
weak, and there is nothing to do but sit 
and wait. 

[ 77] 



Black Russia 

Marie and I go over and over the whole 
thing, and finish at the point where we be- 
gan. "But why?" We think it may be 
because Marie came to Bulgaria to visit 
me and brought me back here, and now 
we want to leave Russia together. The 
papers say that Bulgaria already has Ger- 
man officers over her troops. But I can't 
believe it. She is too independent. They 
say that she will certainly go with the 
Central Powers. That, too, is inconceiv- 
able. Perhaps, however, if it is true, and 
already known by the Russian authorities, 
the secret service is suspicious of our going 
back there, and of Marie's intention of 
sailing home from Dedeagatch, via Greece. 
What else could it he? How this uncer- 
tainty maddens us! Yet we are thankful 
for every day that passes and leaves us to- 
gether. What will happen when they trans- 
late my letter? Boje moy! I hear a step 
outside the door, and my heart simply 
ceases to beat. 

Pan Tchedesky to-day tiptoed into our 
room when the spy was having his lunch. 
He whispered to us that he had seen the 
English Consul, Mr. Douglas, and told him 
about our case. He begged us not to be 
discouraged, and to eat. He said that he 

[ 78 ] 



Black Russia 

almost wept when he saw our plates come 
back to the kitchen, untouched. How 
flabby and livid he looked, his vague, 
blurred eyes watery with tears! Yet we 
could have embraced him. He is the only 
person who has spoken to us. 

The sun is golden on the old convent 
wall across the street. The convent is 
empty during the summer. Only the rich- 
est Court ladies send their daughters there 
to be educated, and the Dowager Empress 
visits them when she passes through Kiev. 
The trees in the garden are gold and green 
in the late afternoon sun. A little bell 
tinkles musically. 

Below in the street some passing soldiers 
are singing. How fresh and strong and 
beautiful their untrained voices are. I 
wonder if they are off to the front, for 
each one carries a pack and a little tea- 
kettle swung on his back and a wooden 
spoon stuck along the side of his leg in his 
boot. Where will they be sent.^ Up north, 
to try and stem the German advance ? To 
Riga? Where .^ The Germans are still ad- 
vancing. Something is wrong, somewhere. 
And still soldiers go to the front, singing. 
They are thrown into the breach. I can't 
help but think of the fields of Russian dead, 

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Black Russia 

unburied. Who has a chance to bury the 
dead on a retreat? There is nothing "de- 
cent" in it. Yet they say the retreat is 
"orderly." I wonder what that means? 

At night when I try to sleep, I see the 
map of Russia as if it was printed on my, 
eyeballs. It is so big and black with a thin 
red line of fire eating into it. America 
seems millions of miles away. I wish I 
could touch you just for a minute. If I 
could only feel your arms about me for 
one moment. The only way is not to think 
beyond this room and this minute. 

Ruth. 

August. 
Dearests: — 

Peter is here. Last night, about nine 
o'clock the door opened and he rushed into 
the room. I got to my feet on impulse, 
and then tried to brace myself and control 
my disordered reason, for, of course, I be- 
lieved myself delirious. He stopped by the 
door long enough to throw down his suit- 
case, and in that instant I struggled fiercely 
to disbelieve my eyes. I was fighting my- 
self. My legs trembled. But when I fell, 
his arms were around me, supporting me. 

"Is it you? Is it you?" I don't know 
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Black Russia 

whether I said the words out loud or not, 
but I remember feeling the muscle in 
Peter's shoulder and wondering if I could 
have gone out of my head as much as thaU 

"What on earth has happened to you 
two?" he said at last. 

"Let me sit down," I said, feeling sud- 
denly very sick and faint, and a black spot 
in front of my eyes expanded all at once 
and shut out the swaying room. 

"Why did n't you come to Bucharest?" 
he asked again. 

"How white and thin you are. Is n't he, 
Marie?" I observed, the blackness gone 
from. my eyes. 

"Please answer me. What is the matter? 
You both look sick." 

"We are under arrest for espionage," 
Marie and I suddenly burst out in chorus, 
and we both began talking as fast and as 
loud as we could. 

"That's all right. I '11 ^x things for you," 
Peter reassured us when we stopped at last, 
out of breath. I suddenly wanted to hide 
him so they would n't get him as well as 
ourselves. He was so self-confident. What 
did he know of how things happened over 
here? He was talking and acting like a 
rational human being, which was sure 

[8i ] 



Black Russia 

proof he was in no position to cope with the 
Russian Secret Service. *I felt a frantic de- 
sire to get him out of the room and make 
him promise that on no account would he 
admit he knew us. 

"You must go at once," I whispered. 
"There's a spy at the door. If he sees you, 
they'll arrest you, too. Please go, go at 
once." And I tried to push him away. 

"You poor things," he said, laughing. 
"There's no need to be frightened like this. 
Of course I won't go. Why should they 
arrest me?" 

"Why should they have arrested us ? Oh, 
you donH know." My teeth were chattering. 

"Now, look here," he said seriously. 
"You've been alone and scared, and I'm 
sure you have n't eaten anything for days. 
Now, don't think about this any more. I'll 
get you out in no time. Have you a cigar- 
ette, anybody?" 

I sat back, and my body stopped shak- 
ing. Everything seemed very still. I had 
the distinct thought, "What is to come, 
will come," and I drew a deep breath that 
seemed to come from my toes. It was 
enough Peter was here, after all. 

We talked till three in the morning. 
Peter had gone to Bucharest to meet us, 

•J 82 ] 



Black Russia' 

and when we did n't arrive, he took the 
first train to Kiev. I began to believe in 
his bodily presence. Before he left to go 
back to his hotel, I had regained my con- 
viction he was a match for even the Rus- 
sian Secret Service. 

Can you imagine how we feel to-day.^ 
We go tottering round the room, taking 
things up and putting them down again, 
in a nervous anxiety to do something. We 
chirp the rag-times popular in America 
two years ago. We feel as though we were 
just recovering from a sickness, with a 
pleasant bodily weakness like a convales- 
cent's in the springtime. Peter brought 
me a bunch of red roses when he came over 
this morning. I am writing this while he is 
seeing Mr. Douglas, the English Consul. 

So much love to you from 

Ruth. 

September. 
Darlingest ones: — 

It has been three weeks since our arrest, 
and to-day is the first time we have been 
allowed to leave the room and go outdoors. 
We are still under house-arrest, but we can 
go out in the garden, while two soldiers 
guard the entrance. Is n't it ludicrous? 

[83 ] 



Black Russia 

A gendarme came last night and an- 
nounced with ponderous importance that 
we were to be permitted the liberty of the 
garden if we gave our word of honor not 
to try to escape. We signed two red-sealed 
documents, and so we can go into the 
garden while two soldiers with bayonets 
look to it that we don't go any farther. 

Peter had to bully me into leaving my 
room this afternoon. I did n't want to get 
healthy. I had grown so used to the pro- 
portions of our rooms I hated to make the 
effort to adjust myself to any others. But 
Peter came back from his daily round of 
visits to the English Consul, and the Army 
Headquarters, and the office of Kiev's civil 
governor, and produced from his coat- 
pocket a rubber ball. We were to play ball 
out in the garden, he said. So, after some 
persuasion Marie and I went out into the 
garden with him. How weak I was. My 
legs trembled going downstairs, and I was 
exhausted when I reached the benches in 
the garden. 

Janchu, seeing us, ran up joyfully and 
took his mother by the hand. "This is my 
mother," he said in Polish, looking around 
proudly at the other children who were 
playing there. 

[ 84 ] 



Black Russia 

. Every one looked at us curiously. A 
head appeared at every window in the big 
stone apartment house. I saw the two 
women spies who had undressed us. They 
were evidently employed as servants in 
some family, for one was ironing and the 
other fixing a roast for the oven. They, too, 
looked out at us. I felt hot and indignant 
and, yes, ashamed as though I had been 
guilty. I wanted to hide. I felt inadequate 
to life. People were too much for me. 
People — people, the living and the dead. 
What a weight of life! I could hardly 
control my tears. Weakness, I suppose, 
for . the soles of my feet and my finger- 
tips hurt me as though my nerves were 
bared to the touch. 

I looked up over the garden-wall. The 
tree-tops were yellow. While we had- been 
locked in our room, the season had changed. 
Autumn was upon us. I shivered. There 
was a lavender mist over the city dimming 
the radiance of the gold and silver church 
domes. How beautiful Kiev was! The 
church-belJs were so mellow-toned; and the 
children's shrill laughter and cries as they 
played in the garden. But it tired me. 
Every impression seemed to bruise me. 

Peter bought some little Polish cakes, 

[ 85 ] 



Black Russia 

and we had hot tea to cheer us up — three 
and four glasses of tea. ♦ 

Good-night. Sometimes, when I think of 
you, I don't see all of you, but, instead a 
particular gesture, or I hear an inflection 
of voice that is too familiar to be borne. 
Now I see mother's hands and they are 
beautiful. 

Ruth. 

September. 
Dearests: — ' 

Every day now we go out into the garden. 
We play ball and play tag in the wind to 
get warm. 

There is a private hospital at one end 
of our apartment house, supported by a 
wealthy Polish woman. Two or three times 
a week she visits the patients, young offi- 
cers who go out into the garden with her 
and kiss her hand and talk and flirt. She 
sits on a garden-bench surrounded by her 
young men, a big woman in black, with a 
long black veil, talking vivaciously, using 
her hands in quick, expressive gestures, 
patting their cheeks, leaning forward to 
give their hands an impulsive squeeze. 
When she laughs, which is often, the black 
line of a mustache on her upper lip makes 
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Black Russia 

the white of her teeth whiter still. The 
days when she is n't there, the convales- 
cents flirt with the nurses. There is noth- 
ing horrible about this hospital. The pa- 
tients are only slightly wounded, and wear 
becoming bathrobes when they lounge 
round. 

The window-ledges of the rooms are 
gay with flowers. Almost always a phono- 
graph is going, "Carmen," or "Onegin," or 
"Pagliacci." Sometimes, Peter and I one- 
step to the music on the pavement outside, 
and the officers and nurses crowd to the 
windows and clap and cry, "Encore!" 
Often, after sundown, when the children 
have gone indoors, and we go out for a walk 
before dinner, we see a patient with a band- 
age around his head, perhaps, but both 
arms well enough to be clasping a pretty 
nurse in them. They laugh and we laugh. 
There is no cynicism about it. It's bigger 
than that, it seems to me. 

Into the garden come many street mu- 
sicians. They play and sing, and showers 
of kopecks rain down from the windows. 
Two little girls came a few days ago. They 
were Tziganes, barefooted, with gay petti- 
coats and flowered shawls and dangling 
earrings. Their dark hair was short and 

[ 87 ] 



Black Russia 

curly. One of the children played a bala- 
laika and sang in a broken, mournful voice 
that did not at all belong to her age. The 
other — who wore the prettiest dress, yel- 
low, with a green and purple shawl — ■ 
danced like a little marionette on a string, 
not an expression in her pointed, brown 
face, but every now and then accelerating 
the pace of her dance, and giving sharp, 
high cries. Then, suddenly, they stopped 
in the middle of a measure, and held out 
their aprons for money. A window on the 
ground floor opened and a very pretty wo- 
man leaned out. I have seen her many 
times. She is Polish, the daughter of a 
concierge, and now the mistress of a young 
Cossack, who is leaving shortly for the 
front. She has heavy, pale-yellow hair, 
wound around her head in thick braids, and 
she wears pearls, opaque like her skin. She 
beckoned the little girls into her ropm. 
They went eagerly. Soon I heard them 
singing there. 

When we were with Dr. , from the 

Red Cross hospital this afternoon, a soldier 
came up to us and saluted. He was a 
miserable-looking creature, in a uniform 
too big for him. His face was unshaven, 
his beard gray and sparse, and his eyes red 
f 88 1 



Black Russia 

and blinking and full of pain. He slouched 
away again in a moment, his eyes staring 
down at the sidewalk under his feet. 

"What did he want?" I asked. 

"He wants brandy. He's leaving for the 
front to-morrow, and he asked me to write 
out a doctor's prescription so he could get 
a little brandy. Poor fellow. It was im- 
possible, of course, but I'd have done it 
gladly. He said he'd been wounded and 
discharged, and had to go back to the front 
and leave his family, helpless, again. The 
second time must be so much worse than 
the first. You know what it's like out 
there." 

Ruth. 

September. 
Darlingest ones: — 

At last I have heard from the letter about 
the Jewish detention camp. The English 
Consul came to our rooms yesterday after- 
noon and said he was to act as interpreter 
for the head of the secret police. I was to 
be ready to answer his questions about 
eight o'clock that night. He told me to 
keep my temper and say as little as possi- 
ble. 

Shortly before eight the Consul and the 

[89] 



Black Russia ' 

chief came round together. We all sat 
down. I was quite calm. So often I had 
created my own terror of this moment that 
when it came I met it with relief. I even 
felt a sense of superiority over the chief of 
the secret service. I don't know why, I'm 
sure. Perhaps because I was no longer 
afraid of him. It was as though I had stuck 
, my head under a pump of ice-cold water. 
I felt very clear-headed. I had a curious 
feeling that things were as they were and 
nothing I could say could change them. 

"Are you a Jew.^" he asked me first. 

"No." 

"Is your mother or father Jewish?" 

"No. There is no Jewish blood in our 
family." I thought of Dad's Quakerism 
and smiled. I wondered what he would 
have said if he had been there. 

"Then why have you such sympathy for 
them?" He looked at me narrowly, as 
though he had me there. 

"Because they are suffering." 

"Tck." He clicked his tongue against 
the roof of his mouth in the most skeptical 
fashion. 

He took up my letter, translated into 
Russian, and went through it. The whole 
thing was a farce. I answered the questions 

[ 90 ] 



Black Russia 

he asked me, but they did n't get us any- 
where. Of course, everything I knew about 
the Jewish detention camp I had written in 
my letter. All I could do was to repeat 
what I had said there. And when he asked 
questions like, "Who said five old men 
had been killed along the way?" or, "How 
did you know throwing the bodies into the 
Dnieper had brought cholera into Kiev 
this summer.^" I could only reply, "I was 
told it." "Who told you .f^" "I forget." 
When he got up to go he said : — 
"This letter makes your case a very 
serious one. Of course, we can't have such 
things as that published about us. Have 
you ever written before.^" 
I said, "No." 

" You are n't reporting for any journal.^ " 
I assured him it was only a letter I had 
written my mother and father. 

"It goes out of my hands to-night. I 
shall hand it with a report to the Chief of 
the General Staff." 

"When shall I hear from them.?" 
"They will let you know as soon as possi- 
ble. It's unfortunate you ^ should have 
written it. Otherwise, I could have settled 
the matter myself. As it is, it is a matter 
for the military authorities. Of course, such 

[ 91 ] 



Black Russia 

a letter written in the war zone, at a time 
like this — " He stopped himself. "Good- 
night. Good-night." He clicked his heels 
and bowed himself out of the room. 

"Ouf!" we all said. 

"Mrs. Pierce, promise me you won't put 
your pen to paper again while you are in 
Russia," the English Consul said, smiling. 

" But is n't it ridiculous — absurd — • 
disgusting!" I said. 

"People are sent to Siberia for less," the 
Consul said. "But don't be frightened, 
Mrs. Pierce. It will come out all right." 

"Of course. But when?" 

" Seichas,^' he replied, smiling. 

^^ Seichas.^^ How I hate the expression. 
"Peter, you'd better cable for some more 
money. Heaven knows when we '11 get out 
now," I said. 

Peter sends love too. We are hungry for 
news from you, and we picture greedily the 
piles of letters we shall find waiting for us 
in Bulgaria. I try not to be anxious about 
you — But I wake up at night and this 
silence of months is like a dead weight on 
my heart. 

Ruth. 



September, 
Dear ones: — 

The Germans are advancing. Nothing 
seems able to stop them. And every day 
brings new refugees from the country. 
They come in bev/ildered, frightened hordes 
and pass through the city streets, directed 
by gendarmes. They do as they are told. 
There is something dreadful in their sub- 
mission and in the gentle alacrity with 
which they obey orders. 

The other day we were waiting on a 
street corner for a line of the refugees' 
covered carts to pass. Suddenly, a woman, 
walking by a horse's head, collapsed. She 
sank on to the paving-stones like a bundle 
of dusty rags. People stopped to look, but 
no one touched her. The refugees behind 
left their carts and came up to see what 
had halted the procession. They, too, 
stood without touching her — peasants in 
dusty sheepskins, leaning on their staffs, 
looking down at the woman who had fallen 
out of their ranks. A gendarme elbowed 
his way through the crowd. He began to 

[ 93 ] 



Black Russia 

wave his arms and strike his boot with his 
whip, and shout at the weary-eyed, un- 
comprehending peasants. At last, two of 
them tucked their staffs under their arms 
and, leaning down, picked up the fainting 
woman. They carried her round to her 
cart and laid her down on the straw, her 
head on the lap of one of her children. For 
a moment the child looked down at her 
mother's white face, so strangely still, and 
then, terrified, suddenly jumped to her feet 
and her mother's head fell back against the 
boards with a dull thud. The children hud- 
dled together, crying. A peasant whipped 
up the little horse, and the procession be- 
gan to move on. 

There seems to be a horrible fear behind 
them that never lets them halt for long. 
The Germans — After all, they are hu- 
man beings like the Russians. They, too, 
have their wounded and dying. People 
here speak of special red trains that leave 
the front continuously for Germany. These 
red trains are full of human beings whose 
brains have been smashed by the horrors 
of war. The German soldier is not super- 
natural. Then I think of those terrible red 
trains rushing through the dark, filled with 
raving maniacs, of men who have become 

[94] 



Black Russia 

like little children again. And yet when 
you hear, "The Germans are advancing! 
They are coming!" the German army 
seems to take on a supernatural aspect, to 
become a ruthless machine that drives 
everything before it in its advance, and in 
its wake leaves a country stripped of life 
— all the people and cottages rubbed off 
the face of the earth. 

People here in Kiev feel the same terror 
of the German advance. Can nothing 
stop it.f* A panic has swept over the city 
that makes every one want to run away 
and hide. They crowd the square before 
the railway station and camp there for 
days, waiting to secure a place on the 
trains that leave for Petrograd or Odessa. 
For three weeks Peter has been waiting 
for his reservation to get to Petrpgrad. 
Our case drags on so. He wants to see the 
Ambassador personally. But the trains 
are packed with terrified people. Men 
leave their affairs and go down to the 
square with their families and baggage. 
They sleep on the cobble-stones, wrapped 
up in blankets, their heads on their bags. 
It is autumn, and the nights are cold and 
rainy, and the children cry in discomfort. 
I have seen the square packed with mo- 

[95 ] 



Black Russia 

tionless, sleeping people, and in the morn- 
ing I have seen them ftght for places in 
the train, transformed by this unbearable 
terror of the Germans into beasts that 
trample each pther to death. And when 
the train goes off, they settle back, waiting 
for their next chance. Perhaps some are 
so much nearer the station, but others 
are carried away wounded or dead. Who 
knows what they are capable of till they 
are so afraid? 

My dressmaker's sister was a cripple. 
Fear had crept even into her sick-room. 
When Olga came to try on my dress, she 
fumbled and pinned things all wrong in 
her haste. I spoke to her sharply and asked 
her to be more careful. Then she burst 
into tears and told me about her sister. It 
appeared her sister was afraid to be left 
alone. Every time Olga left the room, her 
sister caught at her dress and made her 
promise not to desert her. She thought of 
the Germans day and night. She cursed 
Olga if she should ever run away and leave 
her to them. A few days later, Olga came 
again. She was so pale and thin it fright- 
ened me, and she did n't hurry nervously 
any more when she fitted me. 

*^ What is it, Olga? You are sick," I said. 

[96] 



Black Russia 

"My sister is dead. Last Saturday, it 
was late when I left you, and I stopped on 
the way home to get some herring for sup- 
per. I was later than usual, and when I got 
home I found my sister dead. She had 
died from fear. She thought I had de- 
serted her. She had half fallen out of her 
chair as though she had tried to move. 
How could she think I would desert her 
ever? Have n't I taken care of her for fif- 
teen years ? But it was fear. She has been 
like one out of her mind since they have 
been so near Kiev. What will they do in 
Kiev? They say the Germans are only 
two days' march away!" 

All day the church-bells have been ring- 
ing for special prayers. I went into one of 
the churches in the late afternoon. It was 
dark and filled with people who had come 
to pray for help to stop the Germans. 
There were soldiers and peasants and 
townspeople, all with their thoughts fixed 
on God, I cannot tell you how solemn it 
was. All the people united in thought 
against the common menace. Women in 
black, soldiers and officers with bands of 
black crepe round their sleeves, square, 
stolid-looking peasants, with tears run- 
ning down their cheeks. They knelt on 

[ 97 1 



Black Russia 

the stone flagging, their eyes turned to- 
ward the altar with its' gold crucifix and 
jeweled ikons. The candle-flames only 
seemed to make the dimness more obscure. 
And the deep voice of the priest chanting 
in the darkness: all Russia seemed to be 
on its knees ofl'ering its faith as a bulwark 
against the Germans. When I turned to 
leave, I came face to face with an old 
woman. The tears were still wet on her 
cheeks, but she was smiling. 

"Kiev is a holy city," she said. "God 
will protect the tombs of his holy Saints." 
And she brushed by, paying no more atten- 
tion to me. 

There are placards in all the banks, offer- 
ing to give people the value of their jewels 
and silverware. 

Extra pontoon bridges are thrown across 
the Dnieper, ready for the retreat of the 
Russian troops. Though there are lines of 
trenches and barbed-wire entanglements 
before the city, no effort will be made to 
defend it, as it would probably mean its 
destruction. I wonder what the Germans 
will do when they get here ? They are hu- 
man beings, but I can't help but think of 
Belgium, and then I am sick with fear. 
At other times, it seems the one way to 

[98] 



Black Russia 

bring our affair with the Secret Service to 
a finish. How strange it will be to have no 
longer a Russian army between the Ger- 
mans and Kiev. No more a wall of flesh 
to protect us. Poor soldiers, without a 
round of ammunition, fighting with naked 
hands. They will cross the Dnieper to one 
side of the city, crowding, fighting, falling 
together. And the German cannon driving 
them on, and crashing into the city, some- 
times, wiping out whole streets of towns- 
people. And then, the gray lines of the 
Germans running into Kiev. The thou- 
sands of blue-eyed Germans and their 
pointed helmets and guttural speech tak- 
ing possession of everything. 

As we came down the hill to-day, we 
saw great vans drawn up before the Gov- 
ernor's mansion. Soldiers were loading 
them with the rich furnishings of the house. 
Evidently, the Governor had no intention 
of letting his things fall into the Germans' 
hands. How strange it looked — - the fever- 
ish haste with which the house was being 
emptied! 

At the station a special train was wait- 
ing to take the Governor's things to a 
place of safety — and the crowds were 
waiting to escape with their lives! Now 

[99] 



Black Russia 

every one with any sort of a boat that will 
float is making a fortune taking the terri- 
fied townspeople down the river. There 
are, of course, horrible accidents, for the 
boats are overcrowded. One completely 
turned turtle with its load of men and 
women and children. And yet the Gover- 
nor's things must be removed to a place 
of safety. 

Aeroplanes scout over the city every 
day, and at night you can see their lights 
moving overhead in the darkness. Some- 
times they fly so low that you can hear the 
whir of their engines. For the moment you 
don't know if they're Russian or enemy 
ones. 

And all night long high-powered auto- 
mobiles rush up the hill to the General 
Headquarters, bearing dispatches from the 
front. 

I lie in bed, and it is impossible for me to 
sleep. It is as if I were up over Kiev in an 
aeroplane, myself. I can see millions of 
Germans marching along the roads from 
Warsaw, dragging their cannon through 
the mud, fording streams, with their field 
kitchens and ambulances, moving onward 
irresistibly toward the golden domes of 
Kiev. 

[ loo ] 



Black Russia 

You seem far away to-night. Only I 
love you. I can't love you enough. 

Ruth. 

October. 
Darlingest Mother and Dad: — 

This afternoon I went up to the English 
Consulate with Sasha. As we turned the 
corner we saw a long gray procession of 
carts crawling down the hill toward us. I 
stopped and watched them pass me, one 
after the other, crowded over to the side 
of the road by the usual traffic of a busy 
street. Peasants walked by the horses' 
heads, men in dusty sheepskin coats, or 
women muffled up somehow, their hands 
hidden in the bosoms of their waists for 
warmth. They stared ahead with a curi- 
ous, blind look in their eyes, as though 
they did not realize the noise and move- 
ment of the city life about them. How 
strange it was, the passing of this silent 
peasant procession by the side of the clang- 
ing trains and gray war automobiles ! 

"Who are these people.^" I asked Sasha. 

**They must be the fugitives," she re- 
plied. " Every day they come in increasing 
numbers. I have heard the Kiev authori- 
ties are trying to turn them aside and make 

[ lOI ] 



Black Russia 

them go round the outskirts; for what can 
a city do with whole provinces of homeless 
and hungry peasants?" 

"You mean they are the refugees who 
have been driven out of their homes by 
the enemy?" I asked. 

"Yes. By the Germans and Austrians." 

The carts jolted slowly down the hill, 
the brakes grinding against the wheels, 
the little rough-coated horses holding back 
in the shafts. Sometimes, where there 
should have been two horses, there was 
only one. The others evidently had been 
sold or else died on the way. Only one 
small horse to drag a heavy double cart 
crowded with people and furnishings. One 
little horse looked about to drop. His sides 
were heaving painfully and his eyes were 
glazed. "Why don't they stop and rest," 
I thought. "Why does that man keep on? 
His horse will die, and then what will he 
do?" 

"What do they do when their horses 
give out?" I asked Sasha. 

"What can they do?" she replied. 
"What did they do when they were forced 
to leave their farms and lands ? They bear 
it. The Russian people have a great capac- 
ity for suffering. Think of it — what this 

[ I02 ] 



Black Russia 

means now — hundreds and hundreds of 
thousands of people made homeless and 
sent wandering over the face of the earth. 
Think of the separations — the families 
broken up — the bewilderment. A month 
ago, perhaps, they had their houses and 
lands and food to eat. They were muzhiks. 
And now they are wandering, homeless, 
like Tziganes. Ah, the Russian people were 
born into a heritage of suffering, and to us 
all the future is hidden." 

I kept my eyes on the endless procession. 
Some of the carts were open farm wagons, 
piled with hay, and hung with strange 
assortments of household utensils. Frying- 
pans and kettles were strung along the 
sides, enameled ones, sometimes, that 
showed a former prosperity. Inside were 
piles of mattresses and chairs; perhaps a 
black stovepipe stuck out through the 
slatted sides of the cart. The women and 
children huddled together in the midst of 
their household goods, wrapped up in the 
extra petticoats and waists and shawls 
they had brought along — anything for 
warmth. The children were pale and 
pinched, and some of them had their eyes 
closed as though they were sick. If they 
looked at you, it was without any curios- 

[ 103 1 



Black Russia 

ity or eagerness. How pitiful the indiffer- 
ence of the children was-l 

Sometimes the carts were covered with 
faded cloth stretched over rounded frame- 
works like gypsy-wagons. There, the old 
hahas sat on the front seats, eyes like black 
shoe-buttons, with their lives almost fin- 
ished. They seemed the least affected by 
the misery and change. They occupied the 
most comfortable places, and held the 
bright-colored ikons in their arms — the 
most precious possession of a Russian 
home. Perhaps a dog was tied under the 
wagon, or a young colt trotted along by its 
mother's side. 

It was as though there had been a great 
fire, and every one had caught up what he 
could to save from destruction: homes 
broken into little bits to be put together 
again in a strange land. 

An open cart broke down in front of us. 
The woman got out to help her husband. 
She had a round, pock-marked face, as 
expressionless as wood. She wore a bright 
shawl over her hair, and a long sheepskin 
coat, with the sleeves and pockets beauti- 
fully embroidered in colors. It was dirty, 
now, but indicated she had been well-to-do 
once. She limped badly. 
[ 104 ] 



Black Russia 

"Good-evening," I said. 

"Good-evening, excellency," she replied 
civilly. 

"Are you hurt?" I asked. 

"My feet are blistered from the walk- 
ing," she replied. "I take turns with my 
husband." 

"Where are you from?" 

"Rovno." 

"How long have you been on the way?" 

"Many weeks. Who knows how long?" 

"And where are you going?" 

"Where the others go. Somewhere into 
the interior." 

The procession had not halted, but, 
turning out for the broken-down cart, con- 
tinued uninterruptedly down the hill. 
Every now and then the peasant looked 
up anxiously. 

"We must hurry. We mustn't be left 
behind," he muttered. 

"What do you eat?" I asked the woman. 

"What we can find. Sometimes we get 
food at the relief stations, or we get it 
along the way." 

"Do the villages you pass through help 
you?" I persisted. 

"They do what they can. But there 
are 80 many of us." 

[ los I 



Black Russia 

"Can't you find cabbages and potatoes 
in the fields?" I asked." 

The woman looked at me suspiciously 
for a moment, and did not reply. 

"Why do' you want to know these 
things.^" she asked, after a silence. "What 
business is it of yours?" 

" I want to help you." 

"Help us." She shook her head. "But 
I'll tell you," she said. "I did take some 
potatoes once. It was before the cold 
weather. I dug them out of a field we 
passed through after dark. No one saw me. 
My children were crying with hunger and 
I had nothing to give them. So I dug up a 
handful of potatoes in the dark. But God 
saw me and punished me. I cooked the po- 
tatoes over a fire by the roadside, but He 
kept the heat from reaching the inside of 
the potatoes. Two of my children sickened 
and died from eating them. It was God's 
punishment. We buried them along the 
road. My husband made the crosses out 
of wood and carved their names on them. 
They lie way behind us now — unsung. But 
perhaps those who pass along the road and 
see the crosses will offer up a prayer." 

"I will burn candles for them," I said. 
"What were their names?" 
[ io6 ] 



Black Russia 

"Sonia and Peter Kolpakova, your 
excellency. You are good. God bless you ! " 
And she kissed my hands. 

I looked at the three children who were 
left. They sat In the cart silently, sur- 
rounded by the incongruous collection of 
pots and pans, and leaning against a 
painted chest. The chest was covered with 
dust, but you could still see a bunch of 
bright-painted flowers behind the chil- 
dren's heads. 

"Poor little things,'' I said. "Are they 
cold.?" 

"It's hard on the children," the mother 
replied stolidly. "They can't stand it as 
we can. We are used to trouble. We know 
what life Is. But the children — they are 
sick most of the time. They have no 
strength left. What can we do for them ? 
We have no medicines. Have you any 
medicines?" she asked, with a sudden, 
hopeful glint in her dull, wide-set eyes. 
"No.?" Her face regained Its impassivity. 

Her husband straightened himself, grunt- 
ing. He had finished tying the broken 
wheel together with rope. 

"Come, we must be moving. Hurry, or 
we'll be left behind," he said, going to the 
little horse's head. 

[ 107 ] 



Black Russia 

The woman climbed back into the cart 
and took the youngest child in her arms. 
A feeble wail came from the dull-colored 
bundle. Her husband turned the horse 
into the procession again. 

Still the carts were coming over the hill, 
gray and dusty, with the peasants and 
their wives walking beside the horses' 
heads. What a river of suffering! What a 
smell came from it! And automobiles and 
tramways rushed by. 

Is this the twentieth century? 

October. 
I delayed mailing my last letter, so I 
shall tell you about another glimpse I've 
had of the refugees. Yesterday, as we sat 
drinking tea, we heard the rumble and 
creak of heavy wagons outside the pension. 
The noise reached us distinctly in spite of 
the windows being hermetically sealed 
with putty for the winter. At first we 
thought it was the regular train of carts 
that climb Institutska Oulitza every eve- 
ning at six o'clock carrying provisions to 
the barracks. But the rumble and creak 
persisted so long that I went to the win- 
dow at last to see why there were so many 
more carts than usual, j 
[ io8 ] ' 



Black Russia 

There was a procession of carts, but in- 
stead of going up the hill in the direction 
of the barracks, it was descending the hill, 
and instead of soldiers in clumsy uniforms, 
peasants in bell-shaped sheepskin coats 
walked by their horses' heads, snapping 
the long lash whips they carried in their 
hands. I recognized the covered gypsy 
wagons and the open carts with their 
bulky loads. It was too dark to see dis- 
tinctly, but I knew they were refugees by 
the strings of kettles along the sides of the 
carts, which caught the electric light in 
coppery flashes. And in the open wagons 
I could see the pale disks of faces. As I 
watched, the procession came to a stand- 
still and the drivers collected in little 
groups under the white globes of the street 
lamps. I went outdoors and crossed the 
street to them. 

I approached a group of three men. 

"Good-evening," I said. 

"Good-evening, Panna," they replied. 

"Have you come far?" 

"Far.f* I should say we've been two 
months on the road," replied the best- 
dressed man of the three. He had fur cufi"s 
and collar on his long sheepskin coat, and 
his boots were strong and well made. 

[ 109 1 



Black Russia 

" Can you tell me where we can get sonie 
tobacco?" he asked. 

I directed him down the street a little 
way. He took a piece of silver from a 
leather purse he wore round his neck, and 
gave it to one of his companions, who 
left on the errand. The other man went 
round to the tail of the cart and took 
down two bags of grain for the horses' 
supper. 

"Good horses you have there," I said, 
to say something. 

"Yes, indeed; the best horses a man ever 
had; less good ones would have died on 
the road long ago. I bought them for fifty 
roubles apiece, and I would n't take two 
hundred and fifty for them to-day. But, 
then, they're all I have left of back there." 
He spoke in a quiet voice, scratching his 
stubby, unshaven face, absent-mindedly. 

"Is he traveling with you.^" I asked, 
pointing to the man who was slinging the 
grain-bags round the horses' necks. 

"Yes. I picked him up along the road. 
His horse had died under him and he 
counted himself no longer a human being. 
What was he, indeed, with nothing he 
could call his own in the world any more? 
I let him come along with me. I had extra 
[ no ] 



' Black Russia 

room. So I let him come along with me." 
His voice had no expression in it. 

''But have n't you a family?" I asked. 

"I have three children," he replied. 

"It must be hard to take care of chil- 
dren at such a time as this." 

"God knows it is," he replied. There 
was a sudden desperate note in his voice. 
"It's a woman's business. But my wife 
died on the way. A month and a half ago 
— soon after we started. It seems soon, 
now, but we'd been long enough on the 
road to kill her with the jolting and misery 
of it." 

"Was she sick.?" 

"She died in childbirth. There wais no 
one to take care of her, and nothing for 
her to eat. I made a fire, and she lay on 
the ground. All night she moaned. She 
died toward morning. The baby only 
lived a few hours. It was better it should 
die. What was ahead of it but suffering.'* 
It was a boy, and my wife and I had al- 
ways wanted a boy. But I would n't have 
minded so much if the little wife had lived. 
It's hard without her." 

The man returned with the tobacco and 
the three peasants lighted cigarettes. All 
was quiet. I heard nothing but the champ- 

[III] 



Black Russia 

ing of the horses as they munched " the 
grain and the whistling of the wind through 
the poplars in the convent garden. 

*'Kiev is a big city — a holy city, I've 
heard. Many from our town have made a 
pilgrimage here," the rich peasant ob- 
served. 

For the moment I'd forgotten where I 
was. Now I heard the city noises; the foot- 
steps grinding on pavements; the whistle 
and grinding of trains. And the lights from 
the city reddened the mists that rose from 
the Dnieper. 

The carts in front began to move on. 

"Where are we going.?"- — "What are 
the orders.?"^ — "Is there a relief station 
here?" every one cried at once. 

"Good-bye. A good journey," I cried. 

"Thank you. Good-bye." 

The men stepped out into the road 
again. I watched cart after cart pass me. 
The women looked straight out between 
the horses' ears, and showed no curiosity 
or wonderment at being in a big city for 
the first time in their lives. Strange sights 
and faces had no significance for them any 
more. 

I ducked under a horse's nose and went 
indoors again. , 

[112] 



Black Russia 

There is something shameful in our 
security. We have shelter and bread. We 
can only feel life indirectly, after all. We 
are always muffled up by things. And 
America. A pathologic fear clutches me, 
for how will it all end ? 

My love to you every minute. 

Ruth. 

October. 
Dearests: — 

There seems no beginning or end to my 
stay here. How strange it is to look back 
to July and remember the long, hot days 
and the languorous nights when, in spite 
of the war, people walked in the gardens 
and listened to the music and drank punch 
out of tea-cups, pretending it was tea. The 
still, starlit nights of July. 

I remember a dinner Princess P 

gave at Koupietsky Park a few nights after 
my arrival in Russia. Everything was so 
new to me. Our table was set out on the 
terrace, overlooking the Dnieper, with the 
music and stir of people in the distance. 
An irresponsible joy filled my heart as I 
looked down at the black, winding river 
with its shadowy banks and the fantastic' 
shimmer of lights on the water. The city 

[ 113 ] 



Black Russia 

lights crowded down to the very water's 
edge; then the drifting- red and green Hghts 
of steamers and ferry-boats moving on 
the black, magic stream, and beyond, the 
flat plain, silent and mysterious, with, over 
the horizon rim, the thunder and clang 
of war. But war was far away those first 
days I was in Russia. I hardly thought 
of it. 

The dome and square walls of a monas- 
tery were momentarily whitened by a 
wheeling searchlight, and high up against 
the dusky, starlit sky was printed a shin- 
ing gold cross. Women's dresses glimmered 
in the darkness like gray, widespread 
wings of moths, and laughter came from 
the curve of the terrace overlooking the 
monastery garden. 

"My child, there are tears in your eyes; 
how pretty!" the Princess cried, taking 
my hand in hers and stroking it with her 
small, cold fingers. 

There were other Americans present 
beside myself, and I knew the Princess 
loved one of them. It was to make him 
jealous, I knew, that she held my hand 
in hers throughout dinner. She, herself, 
hardly ate anything, only smoked one 
cigarette after another. There were all 

1 114] 



Black Russia ' 

sorts of zakouski, stuffed tomatoes and 
cucumbers and queer little fishes In oil, 
and pickled sturgeon and mushrooms, and 
salads and caviar, and there was kvass to 
drink, — deep red, — and a champagne 
cup served in a teapot, and cigarettes all 
through the meal. 

The Princess was middle-aged and 
wanted to ■ appear youthful; so she dyed 
her hair blue-black which was harsh for 
her pointed face, and wore costly, too 
elaborate clothes from Paris. But her 
body showed delicately round under the 
laces and chiffons, and she was quick and 
light in her gestures like a bird. Her hus- 
band, who had been twice her age, had 
died, leaving her large estates and much 
money. Now she moved about Russia 
with a maid and a wee little dog and 
numberless trunks, frivolously seeking her 
pleasure. Her eyes were black and glitter- 
ing, and her mouth red and thin and flexi- 
ble. She had caressing, spoiled ways with 
every one from the American whom she 
called "Meester" to her chow dog, and 
all she asked from any one was amusement. 

" I like Americans," she said with shame- 
less flattery. "So much I like them. The 
women — and the men. I shall go to 

[IIS] 



Black Russia 

New York after the war, and you will show 
me your famous cabarets, and — what do 
you call it?" She appealed to "Meester." 

"Broadway — good old Broadway," he 
replied indulgently. 

"Ah, yes. B-r-r-oadway. And I will 
dance all night. I dance magnificently. Is 
it not so, Meester.^ Yes, I will go to New 
York and become just like an American." 

After dinner we went to a wrestling- 
match, and "Meester" took the Princess, 
radiant and vivacious and paying all the 
bills, back to the Continental. 

Since July war has come nearer Kiev. 
The hospitals are full of maimed and 
wounded soldiers who fought to defend 
Russia. They made a bulwark of their 
breasts. It was as though one single giant 
breast, hundreds of versts broad, thrust 
itself between the Germans and home. 

And it is winter now. The days are short 
with an icy, gray mist from the Dnieper, 
and flurries of snow. There is a shortage 
of coal, and we sit shivering in our apart- 
ment. We drag the covers off the beds and 
wrap ourselves up in them while we read 
books from the circulating library or play 
three-handed bridge. The wind rattles the 
windows and streaks the panes with snow 
[ii6] 



Black Russia 

and rain. But however dirty they get, 
they must remain unwashed till spring; 
for they are sealed for the winter with 
putty, and you can open only one small 
pane at the top. The apartment is darker 
than ever. Not once does the sun shine 
into our rooms. We see the sunlight in the 
street, but the dark shadow of the building 
lengthens minute by minute, stretching 
itself across the street and reaching up over 
the convent wall like the smothering black 
hand of a giant, till only the tips of the 
cypresses and poplars in the gardens are 
red in the late sunlight. 

At tea-time we go to "Francois's" or 
to some other little sweet-shop, in order 
to get warm. There, we drink glass after 
glass of weak tea and eat little Polish 
cakes, and look over the English and 
French periodicals. 

It is dark when we go out Into the street 
again, and the air is frosty. The officers 
wear short gray coats, braided and lined 
with fur, and fur caps. The women are 
muffled in seal and sable, which make 
the skin look clear and white, and their 
eyes brilliant. Even the peasants wear 
sheepskin coats, bell-shaped and richly 
embroidered. Marie has winter clothes, 

[117] 



Black Russia 

but the warmest thing I possess is my 
traveling suit I wore here in June, which 
has been getting thinner and thinner ever 
since. My feet, in low summer pumps, are 
swollen and' burning with chilblains. I 
must get some high shoes when our next 
money comes. You see, that is the trouble. 
We are promised our passports from day 
to day, and, expecting to go at any time, 
we try to get along with what money we 
have, and wait to buy clothes till we get 
back to Bucharest. But our passports are 
not given us and our money gets low. We 
are waiting for money now, and, of course, 
a cold snap has set in just when we can't 
possibly buy anything. Peter's summer 
suit hangs on him in folds. The heaviest 
iron could n't crease it into even temporary 
shape. When we went to the cinemato- 
graph last night he wore Marie's black 
fur coat to keep from freezing. 

"Look at that man," we heard a wo- 
man say in the street. "He's wearing a 
woman's coat!" 

Yes, we go from cafe to cinematograph 
ajid try and keep warm. 

I 've never liked moving pictures before. 
Here they are presented differently than 
in America. Some of the plays I've seen 
[ii8 ] 



Black Russia 

have the naivete and simplicity of a con- 
fession. Others interpret abnormal, psy- 
chopathic characters whose feelings and 
thoughts are expressed by the actors with 
a fine and vivid realism. There is the exul- 
tation of life, and the despair,^ the aggres- 
sion and apathy, the frivolity and the re- 
volt. The action is taken slowly. There 
are no stars. You look at the screen as 
though you were looking at life itself. 
And the films don't always have happy 
endings, because life is n't always kind. 
It often seems senseless and cruel and 
crushes men's spirits. I wish we could 
have these films in America instead of the 
jig-saw puzzles I've seen. 

Octoher. 
There is a gypsy who sells fruit at. the 
corner of Institutska Oulitza, a woman so 
enormous that she resembles a towering 
mountain, and her customers look, beside 
her, like tiny Russian toys. Every one 
looks at her curiously, and I have seen 
several gentlemen in fur pelisses, with gold- 
headed canes, stop and speak to her. In 
the morning she wheels up her cart by the 
curbing and polishes the pears and apples 
with the end of her shawl till they shine. 

[119I 



Black Russia _^ 

Then she piles them up in red and yellow 
pyramids and waits for customers, her 
hands on her hips. Everything about her 
is crude and flaming and inextinguishable 
like life itself. Her scarlet skirt lights up 
the whole street. It floats about her, and 
when she bends over to serve a customer, 
you can see the edges of green and yellow 
and pink and brown petticoats underneath 
as her overskirt tilts up. The lines of her 
body are brutal and compact. Her dark, 
mulberry-colored shawl is stretched tightly 
across her full bosom. Her eyebrows meet 
over her nose in a heavy, broad line like a 
smudge of charcoal, and her nose is spongy, 
and her lips swollen and red from taking 
snuff. She holds her black and silver snuff- 
box in her hand or hides it away in a 
pocket in her voluminous skirt when she 
serves some one. Her fingers are covered 
with rings and she wears yellow hoops in 
her ears. I am repulsed as well as attracted. 
She is like a bold, upright stroke of life, 
and then I see her crafty eyes and notice 
how, in spite of her size, when she moves 
it is with the softness and flexibility of a 
huge cat. 

Peter went to Petrograd to-day and he 
will stay there till he gets ®ur passports. 
[ I20 ] 



Black Russia" 

He would have gone a month ago, but first 
came the panic from the German advance, 
and then the railways were used only for 
military purposes. Now, Marie and I are 
alone, waiting for a telegram from him. 



' " October. 

To-day, the chief of the secret service 
came and told us all political prisoners 
were to be sent on to Siberia. He told, us 
to make a small bundle of necessary things 
and be ready to leave at any time. With 
Peter in Petrograd! I asked him where we 
were going and he shrugged his shoulders. 
I went to Mr. Douglas, who has wired 
Peter. Also, he is going to see the chief and 
try and keep in touch with us. We won't 
leave till the last moment. But already 
many of the hospitals have been moved, 
and certain prisoners. I suppose I must 
destroy these letters to you. But I will 
wait till the last moment. I want so much 
for you to get them and know what has 
happened, because I shan't see you, to 
tell you with my voice, for over a year 
still. I have written so fully for that 
reason. 

A fezv days later. 
We are still here, and there is more hope 
in the situation. There is a persistent re- 

[ 122 ] 



Black Russia 

port in the papers, and It is repeated in the 
streets and houses, that the Germans have 
been stopped by Riga and Dvinsk. Large 
bodies of troops are moved through Kiev, 
day and night, for the front. Regular 
train service is suspended by this move- 
ment of troops. 

Huge vans pass through the city, carry- 
ing aeroplanes to the aviation field outside 
the barracks.' Once we saw a wrecked one 
being sent to be repaired. A troop of small 
boys followed it, looking curiously at the 
broad, broken wings and the tangle of steel 
framework. 

Guns are arriving, too. We see them 
being carted through the streets. And 
early this morning we heard cannon. Our 
first thought was of the Germans, and we 
lay in bed, stiff with fright. Later, we 
heard they were the new cannon being 
tried out before being sent to the front. 
They say that fresh ammunition has been 
received from Japan and America. All 
trains are held up to let these trainloads 
of guns and cannon and ammunition go 
tearing over the rails to the front to save 
Russia. And just in time. I see the open 
cars packed and covered and guarded by 
soldiers. I lie in bed and hear the whistle 

[ 123 ] 



Black Russia 

and shriek of the trains in the night, and 
I imagine row upon row of long iron- 
throated cannon staring up at the stars. 

The Czar has arrived in Kiev for a con- 
ference at Headquarters. He came during 
the night, and no one knows when he will 
leave. There was no demonstration, and 
the police break up any groups of more 
than three persons in the streets. 

A dozen or so Japanese officers passed 
through Kiev, too. They were bound for 
the front, escorting their guns and ammu- 
nition. How curious they looked beside 
the big, naive Russians. They were like 
porcelain figurines with impenetrable, yel- 
low faces, mask-like, and tiny hands and 
feet. What a finished product they appear, 
and yet they go to the front and observe 
the latest methods of warfare and multiply 
their merchant marine while the rest of the 
world is spending itself. 

October. 
I went to a military hospital to-day. It 
was up on a hill, a huge place, formerly a 
school, I think, with a broad piazza where 
the convalescents walked in their gray 
bathrobes. Inside were rows and rows of 
cots, and on every cot a wounded man. It 

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Black Russia 

appeared that a fresh batch had arrived 
from the front, and the doctors were just 
finishing with them. There was a foul 
smell of blood and sweat and anaesthetics, 
and the light came dismally through 
the dirty window-panes, showing dimly 
the rows and rows of pale, weary faces 
on the thin pillows. Sometimes the gray 
blankets came up to the chin, and the 
man looked dead already, he was so dread- 
fully still, with his closed eyes and waxlike 
face. Another moaned continuously, mov- 
ing his head from side to side — "Oh, oh 
• — Oh, oh." His eyes were open, and hard 
and bright with fever. Several had their 
heads wound with strips of bandages. You 
would hardly have known they were hu- 
man. Two or three were blind, with the 
bandage only round their eyes, and it was 
strange to see the expression their hands 
took on — workmen's hands with stubby 
fingers, now white and helpless-looking, 
and picking at the cover aimlessly. 

A nurse told me how an officer who had 
been blinded and was about to be dis- 
charged and sent home, had committed 
suicide the other day. In some way one of 
his men, who had been wounded in the 
arm, had been able to smuggle in a revolver 

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Black Russia 

to him. The officer killed himself in' the 
middle of the night. 

**I don't suppose he knew whether it 
was day or night, and took a chance that 
no one was looking," I said. 

"I think he knew it was night," she 
replied. "He could tell by* the others' 
breathing. I was night nurse. He was dead 
before I reached him. The soldier gave 
himself up of his own accord. He will be 
court-martialed, of course, though every 
one knows he did the best thing. He said 
to us, 'He was my captain. He ordered 
me to get the revolver, and I only obeyed 
orders. I would do it again.' We had a 
hard time the rest of the night to quiet 
the men." 

In a small room to one side were six men 
gone mad. They were quite harmless and 
lay quietly in bed. Besides having their 
reason smashed to bits by the horrors at 
the front, they were badly wounded. I was 
ashamed to stand there looking at them. 
What was I? Suddenly, one of them, a 
young boy surely not more than twenty- 
one or twenty-two, caught sight of us, and 
he fixed his eyes upon us in a curious, con- 
centrated way as if to assure himself we 
were real. And then, all at once, abject 
f 126 1 



Black Rxjssia 

terror leapt into his eyes. His mouth 
opened and the cords of his neck stood out. 
He threw both arms before his face as if 
to ward off somebody or something. He 
began to scream out quick, uninteUigible 
words in a high-pitched, staccato voice. I 
looked fearfully at the others to see if his 
terror would be communicated to them. 
But they were apparently oblivious of each 
other, wrapped up in their separate lives 
and experiences. One middle-aged man, 
with a rough, reddish beard, was smiling 
mildly and smoothing the sheet as though 
it had been somebody's hair. We left the 
room, leaving the nurse to calm the scream- 
ing man. I thought of the terrors and fears 
and memories in that room: the snatches 
of memories pieced together that made up 
the actual lives, now, of those broken men 
in there. 

**Are they — do they suffer?" I asked 
the doctor. 

"No. They don't seem to realize that 
they are wounded and suffer the way nor- 
mal people would with their wounds. The 
only thing is, they all have moments of 
terror, when it's all we can do to quiet 
them. They think the wall of the room 
is the enemy moving down on them. I 

^ [ 127 ] 



Black Russia 

guess they went through hell all right, there 
at the front!" 

*'Will they get better?" 

"We can't tell. We have a specialist 
studying just such cases. These men seem 
pretty well smashed, to me." 

In one corner lay a young man propped 
up with pillows. A nurse was holding 
his hand. His eyes were looking at her 
so trustfully. He hardly seemed to be 
breathing and his face was bloodless — 
even his lips were dead white. And as I 
looked, he gave a little sigh, and his eyes 
closed and his body sagged among the 
pillows. The nurse bent over him and then 
straightened herself. Quickly she arranged 
a screen round the bed. When she walked 
away, I could see she was crying uncon- 
trollably. 

"Ishe— .?" 

"Yes. He's dead," the doctor replied. 
"He's been dying for a week. He was 
terribly wounded in the stomach, and 
there was nothing we could do for him. 
It was a repulsive case to care for, but 
Sister Mary had full charge of it. She sat 
with him for hours at a time. In the be- 
ginning, to encourage him, she bought a 
pair of boots he was to wear when he got 
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Black Russia 

well. For days, now, he's been out of his 
head and fancied she was his mother." 

And life presses as close to death as that 
— while I was looking at him, he had died. 
I just managed to reach the door before I 
fainted. 

October. 
The Governor of Kiev has been removed. 
He was too cautious. It was a bad ex- 
ample! 



VI 

October, 
Darling ones: — 

There is the most careful avoidance of 
any official responsibility here in trying to 
find out where our passports are, and who 
is to return them. We have already un- 
raveled yards of red tape, and still there is 
no end. Of course, ever since Peter came 
he has followed a schedule of visits — one 
day to the English Consul; another day 
to the secret police, then to the Military 
Governor, the Civil Governor, the Chief 
of Staff, and back, in desperation, to the 
English Consul. There is an American 
Vice-Consul here, but he is wholly inef- 
fectual, since he has not yet been officially 
received. His principal duty consists in 
distributing relief to the Polish refugees. 
Mr. Douglas, the English Consul, is our 
one hope, and he is untiring in his efforts 
to help us. If we ever get out, it will be 
due to him. The English Government is 
behind its representatives here in a way 
that the American State Department is 
not. Partly, I suppose, this is because 

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Black Russia 

America has no treaty with Russia, on 
account of the Jew clause. At any rate, 
you might just as well be a Fiji Islander as 
an American, for all the consideration you 
get from officialdom. 

Did I write you about the naturalized 
American Jew in the detention camp ? He 
had cpme back to Galicia in the summer of 
1914 to see his sister married. After the 
outbreak of the war, he was refused per- 
mission to leave the country, and when 
the wholesale clean-up started, he was 
deported with the others. The day I vis- 
ited the detention camp he had just ar- 
rived, . and, knowing we were Americans, 
he tried to secure our aid. He had nian- 
aged to keep his American passport, and 
brought it out to us to prove his naturali- 
zation and to strengthen his demand to be 
set free as an American citizen. The over- 
seer, hearing his excited voice and seeing 
us examine a large sheet of paper, came up. 
He looked like a butcher, in his dirty- 
white linen coat, his legs planted apart, 
his hands fingering his short whip. The 
way in which he joined our group and 
made himself one with us, without so much 
as by your leave, was disturbing. The cool 
self-assurance of even a petty Russian 

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Black Russia 

official IS sinister. They are straw rnen to 
your reason, but hard facts If you bump 
up against them. Our curiosity flagged, 
conscious as we were all the time of his un- 
blinking ferret-eyes on us, and we showed 
a certain alacrity to return the passport 
to its rightful owner. When we were 
handing it back to the Jew, the overseer 
thrust out his hand and said, "Let me 
see it." 

There was nothing for the Jew to do but 
hand it over. The overseer could not read 
a word of English, of course, but from the 
big red American seal he could recognize 
it as an official document. 

Suddenly, he tore it in halves, and as the 
Jew tried to grab it out of his hands, he 
cuffed the Jew down, and continued delib- 
erately to tear it into tiny bits. 

" I am an American and that is my pass- 
port," the Jew cried. 

"That's what I think of an American 
passport," the overseer replied, looking us 
over with incredible impudence as he 
walked away. 

The rest of Russian officialdom must 
regard American rights in much the same 
way, since it Is four months now that we 
have been detained. 

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Black Russia 

I went to the headquarters of the secret 
police the other day with Mr. Douglas. It 
is located in the opposite end of the town, 
down a quiet side street — an unobtru- 
sive, one-storied brown house that gives 
the impression of trying to hide itself from 
people's notice. It is reached by a narrow, 
stone-flagged path, crowded in between 
two houses which block its view from the 
street. There are four windows in a row 
on the front fagade, all with the curtains 
drawn. These four blind windows add to 
the secretive appearance. Over the front 
steps the yellowing leaves of a lime tree 
rustled in the wind and detached them- 
selves one by one. 

We rang the bell. While we waited, I 
was conscious of being watched, and, 
glancing up quickly,^ I saw the curtain at 
one of the windows fall back into place. 
The door opened a crack, and a white face 
with a long, thin nose, and horn-rimmed 
spectacles with smoky glass to hide the 
eyes, peered out at us furtively. Mr. 
Douglas handed the spy his card and the 
door was shut softly in our faces. 

In about three minutes the door was 
opened again, and a gendarme in uniform 
ushered us into a long room thick with 

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Black Russia 

stale tobacco-smoke. He gave me a chair, 
and while we waited I looked about at the 
walls with the brightly colored portraits 
of the Czar and the Czarina and the royal 
family, and the ikon in one corner. "Give 
up all hope all ye who enter here." 

The room was silent except for the 
scratch of pens on paper. The secret-serv- 
ice spies sat at long tables, writing labo- 
riously, and smoking. They all wore civil- 
ian clothes, and I recognized most of them. 
I had passed them on the street or sat 
beside them in restaurants, and three had 
come with the chief to arrest us. I won- 
dered what they were writing. Some one 
was being betrayed or ruined. That was 
how they lived. I looked for the mark of 
their calling on them, but at first they 
appeared an ordinary crowd, pale, with a 
thick, unhealthy pallor, as though from an 
indoor life. Their suits were poor enough, 
— worn threadbare, — and their finger- 
nails were dirty. Furtively they glanced 
up at me and examined me curiously, and 
then gave quick, frightened looks on either 
side to see if their comrades had observed 
their interest in me. What a mediocre, 
shabby crowd, with their low foreheads 
and dead-white skin and dirty linen, and, 

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Black Russia 

yes, the stamp on them that made them 
infamous! It was as though their profes- 
sion affected them the way that living in 
a close, dark room would, stupefying and 
making them bestial. 

And then the chief came in, accompanied 
by two spies with black portfolios under 
their arms. When he saw us, he grew white 
with anger. He looked like a German, 
spurred and booted, with square head and 
]sCw and steel-like eyes and compressed, 
cruel lips. He was the only well-dressed 
one in the crowd, but his livery was the 
same as theirs. He was their superior, 
that was all, and how I loathed him! 

"He's angry because we were brought in 
here," Douglas whispered under his breath. 

The chief turned his back on us. 

The spies scribbled away furiously, their 
noses close to their paper, not daring to 
look up. 

We were taken into another room, a 
small back room, bare except for a table 
and sofa and a tawdry ikon in the farthest 
corner. And there we waited fully fifteen 
minutes in absolute silence. How silent 
that house was, full of invisible horrors! 
The headquarters of the secret police ^ — 
why should n't it be terrifying when you 

[ I3S ] 



Black Russia 

think of the men and women who have 
been brought here in secret, and their ex- 
istence suddenly snapped off: secret arrest, 
secret trial, or no trial at all, and then a se- 
cret sending-off up north, out of the reach 
of the world! What strange abortions of 
life this Government brings forth! Is it 
curious that thinking men and women, who 
have lived apparently well-regulated lives, 
suddenly throw bombs at a minister in 
a railway station, or at an official as he 
drives to the palace in dress uniform, with 
jeweled decorations on his breast? I ran 
my hand over the faded sofa-covering, 
wondering who had sat there before me. 

Suddenly the chief came into the room, 
closing the door carefully behind him. He 
was quite calm again. 

"What do you want?" He looked at 
Douglas. 

Douglas explained how anxious we were 
to get out of Russia, how we had insuffi- 
cient money for cold weather, how my 
husband's business called for his immediate 
presence, and so forth, all of which we 
had gone over at least three times a week 
since my arrest, and all of which was a 
matter of complete indifference to the 
secret police. They had failed to find any 

[ 136 ] 



Black Russia 

proof of espionage, which was their charge 
against us, and my letter, their only evi- 
dence, had been passed on and was snarled 
up somewhere in official red-tape. Now 
they washed their hands of me. 

"We can do nothing. It is out of our 
hands." He was extremely courteous, 
speaking German for my benefit. "It is 
unfortunate that Frau Pierce should have 
written the letter. I was obliged to send 
it on to the General Staff. You should 
have a reply soon." 

There was nothing more to be said. 
Douglas was conciliatory, almost ingra- 
tiating. My nerves gave way. 

"A reply soon!" I burst out. "I'm 
sick of waiting. If we have the liberty of 
the city, surely there can't be anything 
very serious against us. It's an outrage 
keeping our passports. I'm an American 
and I demand them." I was almost crying. 

"You must demand them through your 
Ambassador, meine Frau." 

I knew that he knew we had been tele- 
graphing him since our arrest and my im- 
potence made me speechless , with rage. 
Douglas took advantage of my condition 
to beat a hasty retreat. 

As we were going through the doorway, 

[ 137 ] 



Black Russia 

the chief said carelessly, "By the way, 
how did you happen to-find this house?" 

"I have been here before," Douglas 
replied. 

"Thank you. I was only curious." 

I could feel the spies' eyes on my back 
as we went down the path. 

"Mrs. Pierce — Mrs. Pierce, you must 
not lose your temper that way." 

"I don't care!" I cried. "I had no way 
to express what I felt." 

"I know," Douglas agreed thoughtfully. 

We hailed a droshky and got In. 

"I have a friend — a Pole," said Doug- 
las. "For no reason except that he was a 
Pole, they made a revision at his house, 
and among other things took away every 
calling card they found. They made a 
revision then on each one of those people 
whose names they found. Though they 
found nothing incriminating In his pos- 
session, they make him report every day 
at the police headquarters. A year ago he 
was a giant In strength. Now he is a sick 
man. The uselessness of it. Nothing was 
found against him, and yet he is followed 
and watched. What are they driving at? 
They are wearing him to the bone with 
their persecution." He shrugged his shoul- 

[ 138 ] 



Black Russia 

ders and laughed suddenly. "Come, Mrs. 
Pierce, you can do nothing against them. 
But let me tell you what I will give you. 
It is a German helmet that a friend of mine 
brought from the Riga front. You can 
put it in your room and blow beans at it!" 

October, 
"Passports — passports, who's got the 
passports?" It's like a game — or la re- 
cherche de Pabsolu, And it is n't as though 
you could hop into a cab and make the 
round of visits on the General Staff, Civil 
Governor, and the rest, all in one day, or 
even all in a week. Nothing so efficient 
and simple as that. What is an official 
without an anteroom.^ As well imagine a 
soldier without a uniform. And the im- 
portance of the official is instantly, seen 
by the crowd waiting on him. Soldiers and 
Jews and patient, unobtrusive women in 
black wait at police headquarters; gen- 
erals and ladies of quality crowd the ante- 
room of the General Staff. For days the 
faces vary only slightly when you enter 
and take your accustomed place. Patient, 
dull faces that light with momentary ex- 
pectation on the opening of a door, and 
relapse into depression and tragic immobil- 

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Black Russia 

ity when the aide walks through the ante- 
room without admitting any one to the 
inner office. 

I gained admittance to the Military 
Governor the 'Other day. He is the suc- 
cessor of that over-cautious governor who 
moved all his household goods during the 
German advance, and was then relieved of 
office. His palace, set back from the street 
behind a tall iron fence, is guarded by 
soldiers with bayonets, and secret-service 
men. I laughed, recognizing my old friends 
the spies. 

Upstairs, the Governor was just saying 
good-bye to Bobrinsky, former Governor 
of Galicia, and we stood to one side as they 
came out of an inner office, bowing and 
making compliments to each other. Gold 
braid and decorations! These days the 
military have their innings, to be sure! I 
wonder how many stupid years of barrack- 
life go to make up one of these men? Or 
perhaps so much gold braid is paid for in 
other ways. 

The Governor was an old man, carefully 
preserved. His uniform was padded, but 
his legs, thin and insecure, gave him away, 
and his standing collar, though it came up 
to his ears, failed to hide his scrawny neck 
[ 140 ] 



Black Russia 

where the flesh was caving In. He wore 
his gray beard trimmed to a point, and 
inside his beaklike nose was a quantity 
of grayish-yellow hair which made a very 
disagreeable impression on me. All the 
time I was speaking he examined his nails. 
When he raised his eyes finally, to reply, I 
noticed how lifeless and indifferent they 
were, and glazed by age. I could see the 
bones of his face move under the skin as 
he talked, especially two little round bones, 
like balls, close to his ears. 

^^I have nothing to do with the case. It 
has been referred to the General Staff, I 
believe. You will have to wait for the 
course of events." 

He turned his back, went over to the 
window, and began to play with a curtain- 
tassel. An aide bowed me to the door. 

Outside, the anteroom was crowded with 
supplicants. It was his reception hour. 
The murmur of whispered conversations 
stopped when we appeared. ~ Every one 
rose, pressing forward to reach the aide. 
Some held out soiled bits of paper; others 
talked in loud, explanatory voices, as 
though hoping by sheer noise to pierce the 
crust of official attention. But the aide 
took no more notice than If they had been 

[ 141 ] 



Black Russia 

crowding sheep. He pushed through them 
and escorted me to the head of the stair- 
case. Down I went, boiling with rage. 

Dearest Mother and Dad: — 

I am just back from the General Staff, 
where the mysterious rotation of the offi- 
cial wheel landed me unexpectedly into 
the very sanctum sanctorum of the Chief 
of the Staff, and to see him I had to wait 
only five hours with Mr. Douglas in the 
anteroom! Mr. Douglas has just left me 
to go to his club, exhausted, ready to de- 
vour pounds of Moscow sausages, so he 
said. 

The anteroom of the General Staff was 
as Russian as Russian can be. I suppose 
I shall never forget the dingy room, with 
its brown painted walls and the benches 
and chairs ranged along the four sides of 
the room, and the orderlies bringing in 
glasses of tea, and the waiting people who 
were not ashamed to be unhappy. In the 
beginning Mr. Douglas and I tried to talk, 
but after an hour or so we relapsed into 
silence. I looked up at the large oil paint- 
ings of deceased generals which hung about 
the room. At first, they all looked fat and 
stupid and alike in the huge, ornate gilt 

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Black Russia 

frames. But after much study they began 
to take on differences — slight differences 
which it seemed that the painters had 
caught in spite of themselves, but which 
made human beings of even generals. 

There was one portrait that I remem- 
ber, in the corner, a general in the uniform 
of the Crimean War. He looked out at you 
with green eyes, like a cat's. The more I 
looked at him, the more he resembled a 
cat, with his flat, broad head and slightly 
almond eyes and long mustache. His cheek 
bones were high and his jaw square and 
cruel. He settled into his coat-collar the 
way a cat shortens its neck when it purrs. 
He, too, was purring, from gratification, 
perhaps, at having his portrait painted; 
but, wholly untrustworthy himself, he dis- 
trusted the world and held himself ready 
to strike. 

Another portrait was of a man who 
might have been of peasant origin. An 
inky black beard hid the lower part of his 
face, but his nose was blunt and pugna- 
cious, and his eyes were like black shoe- 
buttons sewn close together. He stuck 
out his stomach importantly, and the care 
with which his uniform and decorations 
were painted strengthened the impression 

[ 143 ] 



Black Russia 

that he had made his career himself and 
set the highest value ©n the insignia that 
stood for his accomplishment. 

Well, I made up characters to fit the 
portraits, and the time went on. There 
were three entrances to the room, through 
which aides and orderlies were constantly 
appearing and disappearing. The room 
filled up with people and smelt of oiled 
leather and smoke. The women did not 
move from their chairs, but the men got 
up and stood about, talking in groups. I 
began to feel that I had known these cap- 
tains and majors and lieutenants all my 
life. They looked at me curiously, and if 
they knew Mr. Douglas they asked to be 
presented to me. 

"How do you like Russia?" 

They spoke French. I looked at Mr. 
Douglas and smiled. 

"Very much." 

They were pleased. 

"Ah, you do.? That is good. Russia is 
a wonderful country and its resources are 
endless. But it is war-time. You should 
see Russia in peace-time. There is no 
country in the world where one amuses 
one's self so well as in Russia. But first 
we must beat the Germans." 

[ 144 ] 



Black Russia 

They all begin that way, and then 
branch out into their particular line of 
conversation. 

There was a woman near me, her mourn- 
ing veil thrown back, disclosing a death- 
like face. Her features were pinched, and 
her pale lips were pressed tightly together 
in suffering. She had been waiting surely 
three hours since sending in her card, and 
all that time she had scarcely moved. Some- 
times I forgot her, and then my eyes would 
fall on her and I wondered how I could see 
anybody else in the room. In comparison 
to her all the others seemed fussy or melo- 
dramatic or false in some way. Suffering 
was condensed in her. It flowed through 
her bod}^. It settled in the shadows of her 
face and clothed her in black. Her gloved 
hands pressed each other. Her eyes stared 
in front of her, full of pain like a hurt 
beast's. She sat as though carved in stone, 
dark against the window, the lines of her 
body rigid and clear-cut like a statue's. 

At last an aide came toward her, spruce 
and alert, holding a paper in his hand. She 
rose at his approach, leaning on the back 
of her chair, her body bent forward tensely. 
He spoke to her in a low voice, consulting 
the slip of paper in his hand. All at once 

[ 145 ] 



Black Russia 

she straightened herself, and a burning 
expression came into her face. One hand 
went to her heart, exactly as though a 
bullet had pierced her breast. Then she 
gave a sharp cry, and hurling her pocket- 
book across the room with all her strength, 
she rushed outside. 

Every one dodged as though the pocket- 
book had been aimed at him. A young 
second lieutenant picked it from the floor 
arid stood twisting it in his hands, not 
knowing what to do with it. People looked 
uneasy and ashamed as though a door had 
been suddenly opened on a terrible secret 
thing that was customarily locked up in a 
closet. But the uncomfortable feeling soon 
passed, and they began to talk about the 
strange woman and to gossip and play 
and amuse themselves with her sorrow. A 
crowd collected about the aide, who grew 
more and more voluble and important each 
time he repeated his explanation of the 
incident. 

Shortly afterward, Mr. Douglas and I 
were admitted to the Chief of Staff. The 
walls of his office were covered with large 
maps, with tiny flags marking the battle- 
fronts, and he sat at a large table occupy- 
ing the center of the room. 
[ 146 1 



Black Russia 

When we entered, he rose and bowed, and 
after waving me to a chair, reseated himself. 
He was rather like a university professor, 
courteous, with a slightly ironical twist to 
his very red lips. His pale face was narrow 
and long, with a pointed black beard, and a 
forehead broad and high and white. While 
he listened or talked, he nervously drew 
arabesques on a pad of paper on the table. 

"I have your petition, but since I have 
just been appointed here, I am not very 
familiar with routine matters." Here he 
smiled slightly. "Yours is a routine mat- 
ter, I should say. How long have you 
waited for an answer — four months ^ 
We'll see what can be done. I have sent 
to the files and I should have a report in 
a few minutes." 

An aide brought in a collection of tele- 
grams and papers, and the chief glanced 
through them. Then he looked at me 
searchingly and suddenly smiled again. 

"From your appearance I should never 
imagine you were as dangerous as these 
papers state. Are you an American.^" 

"Yes," I replied; "and I assure you 
that I am dangerous only in the official 
mind. I have no importance except what 
they give me." 

[ 147 1 



Black Russia 

"Mrs. Pierce is an American and un- 
used to Russian ways," Mr. Douglas said 
apologetically. 

"Well, your case has been referred to 
General Ivanoff, and I will wire him again 
at once. If you come back next Thursday 
I will give you a definite answer." 

We went out. It was a gray winter day, 
with a cold wind from the river, but I felt 
glowing and stimulated and alive, seeing 
the future crystallize and grow definite 
again. You can't imagine the wearing de- 
pression of months of uncertainty. 

"That Chief of Staff is the first human 
official I've met," I said to Mr. Douglas. 

"Give him time, give him time," Doug- 
las replied. "Did n't you hear him say he 
was new to the job.^" 

I write such long letters and all about 
things. But I want you to see with me so 
we may share our lives in spite of distance. 
Armfuls of love to you, my dearest ones, 
from 

Ruth. 

November, 
The Dowager Empress came to Kiev 
to-day to visit a convent that she has under 
her protection^ The Christiatick was very 

■ [ 14S ] 



Black Russia 

animated, with curious crowds lining the 
sidewalks and fierce-looking gendarmes 
who snapped their whips and made a great 
fuss about keeping the people in order. The 
trams were stopped and officials rushed 
up and down the Christiatick in huge gray 
automobiles. It was bitterly cold, and the 
waiting people grew restless. At last a fee- 
ble cheer started up the street and swept 
down the lines as a big car came tearing 
down the middle of the street. I caught 
a glimpse of an elderly woman in black — 
that was all. 

I went home. All the way up the hill I 
walked beside a "crocodile." How pathetic 
those convent children are in their funny 
little round hats, all so much too small, 
and their maroon-colored dresses with the 
shoulder-capes to hide any suggestion of 
sex. Their noses were pinched and their 
lips were blue from waiting in the cold to 
see their "protector." They were at the 
age "between hay and grass," narrow- 
chested, and long-legged like colts. They 
climbed the hill stiffly two by two, their 
eyes looking meekly at the ground. Three 
sisters kept them in line. 

At home I found a summons from the 
police to appear with Marie at the local 

[ 149 ] 



Black Russia 

police bureau to-morrow at nine, to re- 
ceive our passports. I telegraphed Peter 
through Mr. Douglas. Now that our affair 
is settled, I feel no emotion — neither 
relief nor joy. ' 



THE END 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: jy|^ 2001 

PreservationTechnologies 

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